The Fanfic Incident
by Loafer
Summary: Lassiter, Juliet and The Boys investigate criminal happenings at a gathering of fanfic writers. I intend to have fun with this, oh yes I do. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** you know if I had any ownership of _**psych**_-things, I wouldn't be only writing fanfic for it.

**Rating**: T because I feel like it and because it makes me nervous to think K means Kids.

**Summary**: Set at some point when nobody's involved with anybody else (yet), the crew is called in to investigate mayhem among fanfic writers. _Muahahaha..._

**. . . . .**

**. . . . **

**. . .**

"Detectives, my office." Vick's expression was odd, and Lassiter glanced at Juliet before they both got up from their desks to follow her.

"What do you think it is?" Juliet whispered.

"No clue, but looks like Spencer's in on it." He was already weary, and from her expression, she didn't seem to hold it against him.

In Vick's office, Shawn and Gus were already occupying the chairs—Shawn perched on the back of his—and as soon as Vick reclaimed her own chair, she gestured to folders on her desk.

"We have a case, but it's complicated."

"They're all a little complicated," Lassiter said.

Shawn scoffed. "To you, man, but not—"

"Mr. Spencer," Vick interrupted. "This is _my_ time to talk." He subsided, and she went on. "There's been an incident behind the scenes of a reality show being filmed here in Santa Barbara. Poisoned water was provided to some of the cast, and while no one was seriously injured, the show's producers have called us in to find out who's responsible."

"I thought reality shows thrived on that kind of crap?" Lassiter leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

Juliet nodded. "Yeah, isn't trying to sabotage each other sort of the point of reality shows? I mean, how do we know it's not a publicity stunt?"

"This isn't that kind of show. I think," Vick said. "It's not really my area of expertise, but Gus here seems to be our personal expert."

Gus took the floor. "You know that show _Fake_? About the guy who pretends to be all kinds of different things?"

"Sure. Oh!" Juliet exclaimed, "is this the reality show about _Fake_?"

Lassiter frowned. "A reality show about a show about a fake?"

"Yes," Gus said. "The reality show is centered around some of the people who write fan fiction about _Fake_. They put thirty fan fiction writers in a house for three months to watch the new season of _Fake_ together, and the show—which is called _FakeFic_—tracks how the subset groups relate to each other as the season progresses, with the winner being the one who is voted by all the groups as the best writer."

"The subset groups?" Lassiter felt his eyebrows going up.

"You're asking a lot of questions," Shawn snarked. "Just let the man talk."

"When do _you_ let him talk?" Lassiter retorted.

"Thank you, Lassiter. As I was about to explain," Gus went on with A Look to Shawn, "the fanfic writers are divided into three groups, according to which ships they prefer on _Fake_."

"Ships," Vick repeated.

"In the night," Shawn murmured.

"Relationships," Gus clarified. "On _Fake_, there are three main characters: Jon, Mariette, and Dalton. The fanfic writers fall into three groups. Some want Jon and Mariette to be a couple; they're called Joniettes. Some want Mariette and Dalton to be together, and they're called Daliettes. And then some," he added more carefully, "want Jon and Dalton to be together. Those are the Jontons."

"Wait. Are the guys gay?"

"No, Lassie, that's not how fanfic works." Shawn's tone was slightly condescending. "You don't have to be gay to be in a slash story."

"Slash?" Vick rubbed her temples.

Juliet jumped in. "It's what they call same-sex pairings in fan fiction."

"Right," Gus said. "It goes back to the early days of the genre, with stories which paired up Kirk and Spock from _Star Trek_. The writers, when describing the stories, would put a slash between the names of the characters in a romantic or sexual relationship, and over time, slash became the shorthand used to refer to that kind of story." He looked nervous. "And there's a lot of it."

"Why would the fans pair up straight characters?" Vick asked.

"Well, usually there's a strong emotional bond or significant shared history between the characters, and the fans run with it."

"It's odd," Juliet remarked, "since on _Fake_, there isn't any emotional or really any _other_ kind of bond between Jon and Dalton. They're just opposites, that's all, and both completely straight."

"Who writes these stories?" Lassiter was frowning again.

Gus again had the answer. "Predominantly females, but there are exceptions." He seemed a bit self-conscious. "I used to write a bit of _Airwolf_ back in the day."

"A bit," Shawn mocked. "Tell them about the _A-Team_."

"Shawn. _You_ used to write _Saved By Th_—" The rest was cut off when Shawn punched him in the arm. "The point is," he said with difficulty, "it is usually women, teenagers on up, who put out the most fan fiction."

"Okay," Lassiter said, ready to move on. "What's going on at the crime scene?"

Vick took over. "The three subset groups are housed in different wings of a mansion with one central TV viewing room. They interact in the TV room and during meals, and aren't allowed any contact with the outside world short of what they see on TV. They've been in place for nearly two months, and yesterday, Group #3—the Daliettes—were given bottled water which had been tampered with, and six of the women went to the ER for treatment. All of them are at least temporarily back at the house, since no one wants to lose out on the potential prize." She glanced at Juliet and Lassiter. "I need you on the scene to talk to everyone, starting with the on-site psychologist who was originally hired simply to monitor the women over the course of the filming."

"And they're _all_ women?" he clarified.

"Aged fifteen to fifty," she said with a smile.

Shawn was smiling too, but Gus nudged him into paying attention again. "Chief! We're invited, right?"

"Yes, Mr. Spencer. We'll be counting on your… powers of observation, psychic or otherwise, to pinpoint who might have poisoned the water bottles."

"Someone with access to the kitchen, for starters," Juliet said.

"Go check it out." Vick handed over the folders. "Here's the information the staff provided about the participants and the house. Get to work, people."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet and Lassiter got to the _FakeFic_ house first, partly because Lassiter was determined to make their presence known before the guys arrived, and partly because the aforementioned guys swore they couldn't go another ten minutes without a taco, and would catch up momentarily.

"It's just ten a.m., isn't it?"

"They have the appetites of ravenous wolves," Juliet reminded him. "Continually. Let's go in."

The house was a restored mansion set on a vast green lawn surrounded by tall trees, and they were met at the door by Frank Stephens, assistant to the producer. "Detectives," he said with some relief. "Thank God you're here." He peered past them. "I understood you were bringing a psychic?"

Juliet shot Lassiter a preemptive look to stop him saying 'no, because he's not psychic,' and answered, "He and his associate will be here in a few minutes."

"Reeking of hot sauce," Lassiter muttered.

Juliet pretended not to hear. "Who stays in the house other than the fanfic writers?"

"Not me," he said with a faint shudder. "These women are… _intense_. I'm here only when the producer is here. That's Katherine Newton, and she's in the dining hall. We film some nights up until lights-out, which is eleven, and the camera crews come back at seven a.m."

"Lights- out? The women honor that?"

"Well, the house alarms are set and they're told we won't back them up if they set them off and the police show up. It's in the contract they sign. After hours, they agree to stay here, in their rooms, no straying."

"Thirty women?"

"Yes." Stephens swallowed. "I never knew fear until I took this job. It's not all of them, though. It's mainly—"

"Thank God!" said a spiky-haired blonde striding toward them. "Saved by the police, as society intended." She offered her very strong hand to them each in turn and Lassiter resisted the urge to massage his crushed bones afterward. "I'm Katherine Newton, producer and director. Come in to the kitchen." She started away, but they all paused when the doorbell rang again.

Stephens let Shawn and Gus in, sniffing discreetly. "Tacos?"

"Very good, my man. You must be the butler. I'm Shawn Spencer, this is Linguini Salmonella, and we're with—"

"Spencer, Guster, get over here," Lassiter snapped.

"Them," Shawn finished.

In the kitchen, a rather large and surprisingly high-tech stainless steel affair, Katherine Newton sat a glass-topped table and invited the others to join her. "We have a lot of ground to cover before we set up for the next shot."

"Frank was about to tell us who stays here apart from the contestants," Juliet prompted.

"As in overnight? There's one monitor per unit but they're not expected to do anything except call 911 in an emergency and call _us_ if anyone bolts. During the day, the camera crew, the housecleaning staff, the psychologist and of course the cooks are here along with me and Frank, but we don't stay all day."

Frank muttered, "Who would want to?"

Katherine shot him an amused look. "Frank's having trouble with the ladies."

"They're not all ladies," he said with a grimace.

"What about the cooks? This poisoned water; who had access to it?" Lassiter had remained standing, restless. He didn't like it when there were so many people on the loose.

"The water was purchased right here in town. We have the receipts."

"But only the Daliettes' water was poisoned?"

"Wait, which ones are the Daliettes?" Lassiter asked, and in the same breath, "Spencer! Guster! Move away from the pantry!"

"Dude, I'm looking for clues!" Shawn protested.

"Really? And exactly what clues did you find in the cookie tins?"

Gus stuffed the last of a chocolate chip cookie in his mouth while Shawn tried to hide the two he had in his hands, a telltale smear of chocolate already on his chin.

"The spirits need sustenance too, Lassie." With exaggerated huffiness, Shawn stepped fully into the pantry with Gus and closed the door behind them.

Juliet turned back to Katherine. "Please send the bill for any excess food consumption directly to Chief Vick and she'll deduct it from their consulting fee."

"Will do," Katherine said briskly, making a note. "Anyway, we saved the bottles for your inspection but it looks like they might have small needle marks. There was some water in the bottom of the case so that's why we thought to check."

"A leak when they were pierced," Lassiter agreed. "Yeah, we'll take a look at those."

"Fortunately not all the women drank water that night."

Juliet, obviously disturbed at the odd noises coming from the pantry, glanced at Lassiter, and he interpreted this to mean she wouldn't object if he took action. "Water was provided to all three sections? Would anyone know ahead of time which case was intended for which section?"

"Wouldn't have to. Each dorm has a small kitchenette—nothing like this, but enough to keep them stocked in snacks for the night. The cases were purchased that morning and placed in each kitchenette then. Assuming the poison wasn't added prior to purchase, the culprit would have had all day to access the bottles."

"And you're _sure_ they weren't tampered with prior?"

Katherine smiled. "Yes."

Frank elucidated, "I bought them. We were low on a few items and I stacked the cases in the back seat of my car. I know they were dry then."

"He's kind of touchy about his car upholstery."

Frank's jaw tightened. "One incident with a sick child in a new car can scar a man."

"I hear that," Lassiter murmured, thinking of Shawn. "Have there been any other incidents?"

"No, just general bickering and sniping."

"It's those Joniettes," Frank said distractedly. "And some of the Jontons. The Daliettes, they're not so bad. But the Joniettes, they're _fierce_." He shivered a little.

Lassiter sighed, strode over to the pantry door, and dragged Gus out by his arm. "Get out," he said grimly, "and go do your so-called psychic crap." He pointed at Shawn, who emerged carrying an open package of cheese straws. "You. Go wash up and for God's sake, find a breath mint." He snatched the cheese straws away from him and closed the package, tossing it back in the pantry.

He knew he probably came on too strong sometimes, but he was just as often damned glad he could. Juliet had once told him he "could intimidate like nobody's business with those piercing blue eyes and patented scowl," and _most_ of the time even Shawn backed off. Which was the goal.

With Shawn and Gus out of the room, he relaxed a little (which wasn't always wise, given the havoc they could wreak unsupervised). "Can we talk to the psychologist?"

"Of course. He'll be here in about ten minutes." Katherine stood up, grinning. "Want to meet the girls?"

Truthfully, no, but he let Juliet answer in the affirmative, and Katherine led them back out into the main hall. "They're in the great room, as we call it, watching reruns of _Fake_ from last season."

She pushed open a wide ornate door and stood aside. Frank had hung back, and Lassiter gave him a critical once-over. _Yes, a group of women can be terrifying. But suck it up, man_.

As if he heard this thought, Frank leaned in close and whispered, "You don't know, detective. You just don't _know_."

Scowling, Lassiter only said, "Go find Spencer and Guster. They need adults to watch over them."

Then he followed Juliet into hell.

He took a breath. Thirty pairs of eyes—some curious, some annoyed, some much too intense, some critical—bored into him. He knew they were looking at him and not Juliet, because, well, he just knew.

Juliet knew it too; she stood a little closer and murmured, "I've got your back." Thank God for her, he thought.

Katherine called out a cheerful hello to the group. "Ladies, these are Detectives Lassiter and O'Hara of the SBPD. They're here to help figure out who tried to kill some of you."

A third of the eyes rolled, a third re-focused their intensity, and the rest were a blur, because Lassiter felt uncharacteristic fear creeping up on him. Juliet touched his arm lightly. He took a breath.

"Which one are you?" asked the nearest female, who looked to be in her mid-twenties, coming out of a Goth phase, and who was distinctly leering.

"Detective Lassiter," Juliet said, when he hesitated. "You are?"

"Damned happy to finally see a man other than Frank and the cook," the girl said with a smirk. "I'm Tessa, leader of the Jontons."

"Yes," Katherine elucidated, "each ship group has a captain. Francie," and she pointed to a seemingly docile forty-something woman with a long braid, "is captain of the Daliettes, and here is Camryn, heading up the Joniettes."

Camryn was probably not twenty yet, Lassiter judged, and she had a part-frou-frou, part rabid French poodle air about her. Her earrings were heart-shaped and she was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a picture of the actor he knew portrayed Jon on _Fake_.

"Which ship?" she asked abruptly.

He stared at her. "Come again?"

"Which ship?"

"He's impartial," Juliet said quickly, again coming to his rescue. He would definitely have to buy her next coffee.

"What about you?"

"Oh, I don't watch the show enough to have an opinion."

Lassiter glanced at her, knowing she was lying, yet admiring the strategy. It would do no good to become either the enemy or friend of any of these groups. He cleared his throat. "I don't suppose any of you has any theories about who poisoned the water?"

Immediate cacophony erupted, and Katherine cut it off quickly with a shouted, "Quiet!" followed by the shrill sound of a whistle she pulled out of her pocket. "Ladies," she said silkily, "please don't give me reason to _film_ you all acting like animals. Let's have the team captains answer the question, shall we? Tessa?"

Tessa sprawled in one of the many padded chairs, most of which were facing the giant-screen TV which someone had paused on a close-up of Jon getting in Dalton's face. At least two of the young women were looking between the screen and the detectives, little longings (for the image) apparent in their half-glazed expressions.

"It's not the Jontons," Tessa said emphatically. "We take enough heat as it is writing about what we know is the only real ship on the show."

Groans from two-thirds of the room could be heard, but Katherine brandished her whistle again and there was relative calm.

Francie flipped her braid behind her back and said reasonably, "Actually, the Daliettes take more heat than you do."

"Damn straight," muttered Camryn. "Because the Daliettes are idiots."

"Camryn," Katherine snapped. "Knock it off. Or save it for when the cameras are on."

Camryn tossed her hair. "Look, Jon and Mariette are dating on the show, and that's how it should be. Plus they belong together, because duh, and anyway, Dalton's a cold fish."

"He is not!" yelled two-thirds of the women.

Katherine blew the whistle, and Lassiter said loudly, "I asked if any of you had any theories about the _poisoning_, not the stupid show."

Oooh, wrong approach. All of the women glared at him then, and Juliet put her hand on his arm again, protectively. Damn, he was glad she was his partner.

Tessa repeated coolly, "It wasn't the Jontons."

"It certainly wasn't the Daliettes," Francie added.

All eyes went to Camryn, who flushed. "Well don't look at us. We wouldn't. We couldn't. Where are we going to get poison anyway? We've been locked up here for two months."

Katherine said, "They get visitors once a week, and since this isn't a prison, the only thing we stop the visitors from bringing in is technology."

"Thanks a lot for the vote of confidence, Katherine." Camryn flopped into her chair and turned to face the TV. "Means a lot."

Katherine eyed the back of her head with obvious dislike, but let it go. "Had enough?" she asked the detectives with false brightness.

"Yes, please," Juliet answered quietly—Lassiter didn't dare speak right now—and the three of them went back into the hall. Katherine closed the door firmly behind them.

"That was fun," Lassiter managed.

"Barrel of," Katherine agreed. "If we weren't over halfway through this, I'd pull the plug in a heartbeat." But saying it, she still gestured to a camera operator who'd come down the hall to go ahead and get started with the contestants.

Juliet glanced at her watch. "Where's the psychologist?"

"Where are Spencer and Guster?" Lassiter countered, suddenly remembering there were far worse things than a room full of man-hungry angry women, such as calls from the mayor to Vick and on down to him when Spencer ran amuck.

"Probably back in the kitchen," Juliet said with a sigh.

"Dr. Rodahill should be in any minute. I can show you the three dorm sections if you like." She started up the stairs, and they followed. Lassiter allowed himself to touch Juliet's arm to guide her up ahead of him.

"And what about the monitors you mentioned?"

"Well, they're only here from nine p.m. to seven a.m. so we didn't think they were involved in this, but I'll get you their names."

"Might give us some insight into how things go when each group thinks it's alone," Lassiter suggested.

"Dr. Rodahill gets reports from the monitors daily, and he's onsite from mid-afternoon to early evening. I asked him to stop by this morning specifically to meet with you." At the top of the stairs, she pointed to three doors off the main hall. "In alphabetical order, the Daliettes, the Joniettes, and the Jontons." She went straight, pushing open the Joniettes' door. "And here we have… oh crap, what the hell is _this_?"

Lassiter looked past her, and sighed.

"Dammit, Shawn," Juliet murmured.

Shawn and Gus were in the middle of the room, engaging in a tug-of-war over a lacy black bra. Frank was sitting on one of the ten beds, his face in his hands, rocking back and forth slightly.

"I think I just got an idea for a new show," Katherine said dryly.

Lassiter shook his head. "I hope this Dr. Rodahill brings a lobotomy kit."

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

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**. . .**

"It's not what it looks like!" Gus protested. He let go of his end of the bra, and it snapped back into Shawn's face. "I was trying to put it back where he got it from."

"And I," Shawn said with dignity as he rubbed his cheek, "was merely inspecting the tag to be sure it was made in America."

"Why? Are you crusading against international lingerie makers now?" Juliet snatched the bra out of his hand and tossed it to the nearest bed. "Honestly? Shawn."

He had the grace to look embarrassed. "It was on the floor. I thought it was an oil slick. I had to check."

Juliet tried to keep her exasperation under control. A glance at Carlton told her he was simmering, but not in the danger zone yet. To Katherine, who was standing over Frank now looking puzzled, she said, "On behalf of the SBPD, I apologize for the behavior of our consultants."

Gus was offended. "Why do _I_ always get in trouble when I'm trying to stop _Shawn_ from getting in trouble?"

"Karma's a bitch," Carlton muttered.

"Frank, snap out of it." Katherine patted his head. "It's okay. The Joniettes will be downstairs another hour at least. Relax."

"I can't take much more of this. Between the crazed women and these two… well, really just that one… I… Katherine, I've got to have a vacation. I've got to!"

"Frank, we talked about this. I need you here. We're already behind schedule and I'll never find a good second on such short notice. Please, please hang in there just a little longer. I might be able to get you a three-day weekend."

He sighed mournfully. "I'd like to be alone now." He got up and left the room, dejection emanating from head to toe.

Katherine sighed too. "All right, moving on. All three dorms are like this. One large room, ten beds, no privacy to speak of. Bathrooms, two, at the back, and the kitchenettes to the left."

"We checked those," Shawn declared. "No extra food."

"What, before or _after_ you 'checked'?" Carlton inquired dryly.

"Lassie, don't be mean. If you had the freakishly delicate metabolism that Gus and I do, you'd understand." He peered at Carlton. "When's the last time you ate?"

Katherine gave Carlton a once-over. "He looks great to me."

_Me too_, thought Juliet, _and that blue shirt makes his eyes even more vividly blue_, but then she was distracted by Carlton's faint blush, and knew she had to speak quickly to keep Shawn from noticing it too. "During the day, how much freedom do the contestants have to leave the house?"

"Not much. They can go into the back yard, which has a high fence, but we keep the main door locked and someone stationed there all day. After we leave, the alarm is set, and none of them have the code."

"No one was at the door when we came in," Carlton said.

"This morning we're sort of discombobulated, but by the time you leave, someone _will_ be sitting there."

"How susceptible are the doorkeepers to the charms of these women, none of whom I've yet encountered?" Shawn glanced at the bra. "Except in my mind?"

"They're paid very well to not be susceptible at all, and if you had encountered any of the women, you'd understand that the money is a bit of overkill."

"Well, now I'm _really_ intrigued."

"I'm not," Gus said. "In fact, I'm the very opposite of intrigued."

"That would be… hang on… degirtin. Wait. Deugirt… anyway, don't be that, Gus. It's not cool." Shawn smiled innocently at Katherine. "I _love_ to meet large groups of women."

She smirked. "Down the stairs, hang a right. All thirty of them are in one place."

Juliet was impressed that Carlton didn't say a word, either to warn Shawn to behave or warn him to be careful. Of course, _she_ kept mum, too.

Once they were gone, Katherine asked, "I'm sorry; is he actually useful?"

"Surprisingly, yes." Carlton moved to the window to look down into the yard; Juliet joined him. It was large and well-landscaped, with a rock garden and fountain and shaded benches. Very scenic and restful.

"Then to answer your question more fully, these women, for all their ferocity about _Fake_, have been keeping to the rules. They want the prize too much to risk it on sneaking out for the afternoon."

"What _is_ the prize?" Juliet asked. "Money?"

"Some, but that's not the real draw." She looked quite pleased with herself. "The winner gets to write a story for an actual episode of _Fake_. It is _such_ a coup. We worked so hard on that deal, to get the producers to realize there's some serious talent among these women, whether it's in the writing itself or in particular story ideas. Plus, obsessed or not, the best of the bunch know the show and the characters inside out, and don't even get me started on what they can tell you about canon and continuity. Lordy, they're relentless."

"Relentless, fierce, intense," Carlton murmured. "You both talk about them like they're the devil's army or something."

She raised her eyebrows. "You didn't feel just a skosh of terror down there in the great room?"

Juliet suppressed a smile at the expression on Carlton's face. "I felt a skosh of terror myself," she offered.

Katherine grinned, and checked her watch. "Dr. Rodahill should be here. Let's go down." They followed her, able to hear cacophony from the great room before they were halfway to the first floor. "Crap," she muttered.

"And awareness dawns that mayhem comes in all forms," Carlton muttered, and Juliet laughed, earning a quick smile from her partner.

Gus, though they could not hear his words clearly, was panicking, and Shawn was yelling something which sounded like "Avast!"

"We should help," Juliet suggested half-heartedly.

"Yeah, we should," he agreed. But instead they hung back, a few steps from the bottom, while Katherine dashed into the great room, whistle already in use.

They grinned at each other.

"You must be the detectives," said a man coming from a room on the opposite side of the hall. "I'm Kelly Rodahill. Katherine said you'd want to speak to me?"

He was, Juliet thought, an elegant sort of man with a touch of practicality in his manner, part Dr. Drew, part Tim Gunn. "Detectives Lassiter and O'Hara," Carlton said, shaking his hand.

Rodahill jerked his head toward the sounds of chaos in the great room. "I heard what you said, and in all honesty, I should get in there too, but," and he smiled, "I don't think so. Let's step into the study."

He closed the door as they entered, and the three of them sat in green padded chairs in relative peace. True to its name, the study was lined with bookshelves, and Juliet felt both at home and pleased that Carlton seemed to feel the same way.

"Tell us about your work here," Carlton began. "Your routine."

"Well, I typically come in about four and stay until nine or ten. I start out by reviewing the film footage for the day to determine whether I need to address any issues, and then meet privately with three to four of the women after that to resolve what can be resolved." He grimaced. "Over the course of a week I'm usually able to meet with half the contestants for about half an hour each. It's not exactly high-quality evaluation time, but the film footage does give me some background for the sessions."

"What can you tell us about the women?" She knew it was pointless to ask for much.

Rodahill knew she knew, and smiled. "Obviously I can't comment on any of them individually, but I can give you my impressions about each group."

"We'll take what we can get." Carlton crossed his long legs. "You've been here from the beginning?"

He nodded. "As you know, there are three groups. Daliettes, Jontons, Joniettes, with women aged fifteen to fifty, and all of them avid fanfic writers. The groups are based on the three potential relationships on _Fake_. Are you familiar with the show?"

Carlton shrugged. Juliet said, "I've seen most of the episodes."

"Okay, then you know the characters Jon and Dalton are very different. What they have in common is intelligence, a certain amount of ego, and issues with control. Where they differ is in how they _handle_ control. Dalton is a little older, and likes order; he likes rules and structure. They keep him grounded. And though he's in charge, he can also be a good second because he knows planning and procedures can work." He leaned back in his chair, templing his fingers. "Jon, on the other hand, prefers to disrupt the control of others. He doesn't like authority, and he not only thinks outside the box, he thinks there shouldn't even be a box. Dalton, needless to say, likes the box. He _can_ think outside it, and very well if he has to, but he never forgets that the box has a great deal of value." Suddenly he rubbed his face hard.

"Doctor?" Juliet prodded.

He sighed ruefully. "Just so you know, I'm fully aware that I'm discussing people who don't exist. I guess I've absorbed a lot about the show in the past two months. Anyway, the point is this: they're different, and so the types of women drawn to them are different, too. The Daliettes are older, they're generally more mature and grounded in how they view the world and relationships. They've lived a little, so they've seen plenty of Jons and Daltons over the years and have come to appreciate a man like Dalton: reliable, dependable, strong. A touch insecure and more than a little flawed, to be sure, but nonetheless a full-grown adult."

Juliet nodded. She liked the show and both of the male characters. They reminded her of people she knew but she could never place who, exactly.

"The Daliettes like and respect Jon but don't consider him a good mate, because they can't imagine him growing up enough. They also tend to keep to themselves here in the house. They don't try to instigate trouble and they take a more live-and-let-live attitude about the interests of the other groups."

"They're stable, in other words," Carlton supplied.

Rodahill grinned. "Stability is relative, Detective. Next group, the Jontons. This is a more diverse bunch of women, with a slightly younger average age than the Daliettes. They have a strong liking for _both_ men, so they interact better with both of the other groups. The thing is, their belief in a Jonton pairing is…"

"Mystifying?" Juliet met his amused gaze with her own smile.

"Exactly. Also tenacious."

Carlton looked at Juliet. "You said earlier the characters didn't have any emotional bond?"

"They don't," Rodahill agreed. "The Jontons believe that because Jon frequently invades Dalton's space, he's attracted, and because Dalton often manhandles him in the process of reclaiming his space—or his control—he must also be attracted. But it's just not there. The two men are straight-up… straight, and in my professional opinion about these people who don't actually exist—which may well make my professional opinion suspect—Jon invades Dalton's space simply because he knows Dalton doesn't like it, and it's the quickest way he can think of to shake Dalton up, given that what Jon loves more than anything else is to shake up anyone who potentially has any authority over him. Dalton, likewise, manhandles Jon because it's the quickest way he knows to restore order. They don't have any emotional bond or history, or even any shared interests. They only work together."

Juliet found herself nodding again. "That's what I think, too. Besides, Jon chased after Mariette for years."

"Wait," Carlton said. "What about Dalton and Mariette? Have they been involved?"

Rodahill shook his head. "No, not on the show. It's made clear that Dalton cares about her and is… aware of her, but there's only friendship onscreen. What the Daliettes pin their hopes on _is_ that very awareness, plus Mariette's protectiveness and loyalty to Dalton. They make a good team."

"And what about the Joniettes?" Juliet prompted.

"Ah, yes. The Joniettes." He took a breath. "This is the most volatile bunch. They're younger, and their commitment to a Joniette pairing is phenomenal. They are the most likely to openly smack down the other groups, particularly the Daliettes."

"The Daliette captain said that, too," Carlton remarked. "Why?"

"I think it's twofold. They don't really consider the Jonton pairing a threat because it's all so implausible to them. They know Jon's straight and loves Mariette, and Mariette herself is very appealing, someone they can relate to. But they _do_ consider the Daliette pairing a threat, because it actually _is_ plausible." He smiled. "They hate it because it _could_ happen; Mariette _could_ choose someone like Dalton over Jon. And this, quite simply, makes them crazy."

"Was that both folds, or just one?"

"One," Rodahill assured Juliet. "The second fold is this. Because this group is comprised, generally, of teenaged girls and young women, they relate better to Jon than to Dalton. They admire his flaunting of authority, because at their age, they often have no authority of their own, or have been—in their opinion—held back by the authority of others. Just as Dalton represents oppression to Jon, Dalton also represents oppression to the Joniettes. They _like_ Jon being reckless and resilient and unstoppable because they want to be like that themselves. And acting out against the Daliettes and to a lesser degree, the Jontons, is a way to thumb their noses at The Man."

"Where does Mariette fit into all this?" Carlton asked.

"She's a straight man to Jon and a staunch defender of Dalton's, though in the past few seasons the show has concentrated more on her new relationship with Jon." He paused, then added, "In most Joniette fanfic, the writers show her being totally accepting of Jon's behavior, even admiring it. But usually the fanfic also portrays Jon as being a romantic hero who quickly and effortlessly matures into a suitable lifelong mate. However, onscreen, Mariette is clearly not entirely okay with his behavior, and has kept things moving only very slowly between them, while he's not maturing at all. If you ask me, the show is risking some of its audience by keeping his behavior outrageous and often unacceptable. On the other hand, _House_ has been on the air for eight years, so what do I know?"

"I wouldn't compare Jon to House," Juliet said with a frown.

"Maybe not," he agreed, with another grin. "House is a lot meaner."

Carlton took over. "So what's your professional opinion on potential suspects for this poisoning? Is it one of the groups, one of the staff, or just a publicity stunt and a waste of the police department's time?"

Rodahill shrugged. "If it's a publicity stunt, they've kept me out of the loop. But I don't think it is. Katherine and Frank were genuinely freaked, and they have nothing to gain by half-killing some of their contestants; nor would the studio want anything to go wrong with over two-thirds of the filming complete."

"So one of the contestants?"

"Hard to say. Since potentially all ten of the Daliettes could have become ill, the act seems pretty specifically anti-Daliette, which points a huge finger at the Joniettes. But that seems too easy, doesn't it?"

"And besides, if the _FakeFic_ production is cancelled, the prize would go away too," Juliet said. "None of the contestants would benefit from that."

"Could the Daliettes have framed the Joniettes?" After saying it, Carlton looked perturbed. "It bothers me that I'm actually understanding the differences here."

"Join the club. But you tell me: even if they uncharacteristically wanted to do such a thing, why would the Daliettes make themselves ill if it meant halting the production?"

"That, Doctor, I can't tell you. What you're telling _me_ is _no one_ benefits from a halt."

"That's how I see it, yes."

Carlton was grim. "That's how I'm seeing it, too. O'Hara," he said with a cool blue glance to Juliet, "we need to meet with the captains."

"Agreed. But first we should probably find out what's going on with Shawn and Gus."

The three of them stood, and Rodahill asked curiously, "Is he really psychic?"

Carlton looked at him, remaining silent.

Juliet sighed. "Whatever he is, he's helped us out on a lot of cases." Truth was, she didn't know what to think half the time. For every apparently 'bonafide' vision, there were a dozen times Shawn merely knew what he knew _first_; it wasn't that what he knew couldn't be known by natural means (e.g., by people working within the confines of the law).

"You're welcome to have a word with him," Carlton said politely. "In fact, I really wish you would."

"Carlton, do _not_ ask about lobotomies," she hissed.

Rodahill laughed. "I think I _will_ talk to him. He reminds me of someone, but I can't think who."

He opened the door for them just as Shawn and Gus spilled out of the great room and into the hall, followed by six furious young women, with Katherine blowing her whistle and two camera operators trying to keep up with the action.

After a moment watching the melee, Rodahill said reflectively, "On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

_[Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist, nor do I play one on TV. Remember, it's just a story.]_


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

"Whir!" Katherine said urgently to the tall cameraman on the left. "Get Maggie off of Shawn! Nicole, stop thumping Gus!"

Whir set the camera down carefully and did as he was told, and the other young women backed off, leaving Gus completely shaken and Shawn rather pale.

"Spencer, over here _now_," Lassiter commanded, and although that didn't usually work on him, today it did. The man was stunned. "As much as I dread sending you anywhere near the pantry, go into the kitchen and sit down."

Shawn looked at him blankly, but obeyed, with Gus in tow. Actually Gus sped past him and the closing door nearly hit Shawn in the face when he followed.

Lassiter turned to Katherine. "What happened in there?"

She glared at the girls. "Tell him, ladies."

"They were being idiots," said the wild-eyed one named Maggie. "They said _Fake_ was a bad show and then they started critiquing our writing." She took a deep breath. "Do I _need_ some gel-haired moron telling me not to split infinitives?"

"I kinda liked his hair," murmured one of the others, but Lassiter couldn't tell who.

"So you started beating them up," Katherine prompted acidly.

Maggie rolled her eyes. "You know we never touched them until we got out here. They're complete sissies."

Next to Lassiter, Juliet nodded slightly. He suppressed a grin. "Jonton?" he asked Maggie, since he figured she was a bit too young to fit the Daliette profile and although he wasn't sure why, he was _certain_ she wasn't a Joniette.

She looked him over. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

He shrugged. Looking past her at the horde of women still in the great room trying to see what was going on, he said loudly, "I need the ship captains out here immediately!"

Dr. Rodahill, more mildly, said, "And I'd like to speak with _you_, Maggie. Bring Nicole along." He gestured, and they slowly headed toward him and the study.

Tessa, Francie and Camryn worked their way free of the throng.

"Is there another office we could use?" Juliet asked Katherine, who was trying to herd everyone else back to the great room.

"Try the sunroom at the end of the hall," she said, and they didn't wait for further directions.

Knowing Shawn and Gus were already probably halfway through the food supplies should have worried Lassiter more, but he decided he could handle them better if they were preoccupied with snacking.

The sunroom was, in fact, sunny, filled with wicker furniture and a vast number of pillows of all sizes, shapes and colors. Lassiter initially thought it was frou-frou but as soon as he sat in one of the comfortable chairs, and more importantly as soon as he realized Juliet's dark blue eyes had lit up at the sight, the feel—the very ambience—of the room, he liked it a lot better. He liked finding out what things made her happy, even though there was precious little he could do about most of them.

The captains seated themselves, equidistant from each other (ever at war), and looked at him expectantly.

"We've gotten some insight into how things work here from Dr. Rodahill," Juliet began. "But we'd like your take, since we're sure the camera doesn't pick up everything that happens in this house."

They looked at each other for a moment; then Francie spoke. "You understand _why_ we're here?"

"Of course they do," Camryn said rudely. "They're investigating the poisoning, remember?"

Tessa sighed.

Francie ignored Camryn. "You probably think fan fiction is ridiculous."

Juliet shook her head. "I don't. I see no harm in it, and why shouldn't people be able to write their own stories about characters they love?"

Lassiter saw them all turn to him, and kept his expression and tone as neutral as possible, not wanting to end up shell-shocked like the men no doubt currently demolishing the kitchen. "I have no opinion yet."

Nodding, Francie went on, "Well, this group is probably a little more serious about everything because the prize is such a dream for all of us. And being serious means… not much tolerance for our differences."

"So we're intolerant?" Camryn snapped. "The Joniettes?"

"Camryn, do you have to be so damn angry all the time?"

"Shut up, Tessa. Go write your little non-canon pervy stories."

"Pervy?" Tessa sat up, glaring. "It's not pervy to write about people in love."

"It's pervy to write about straight guys getting it on for no reason."

"God, have you even _read_ any of my stories?"

"Why the hell would I? It would never happen. And if Jon ever _were_ going to go for a guy, it sure as hell wouldn't be Dalton."

"One day," Francie interjected mildly, "you _will_ see Dalton's appeal."

"Don't count on it, Grandma."

"What is your problem?" Tessa persisted. "Why can't you just accept the existence of other viewpoints? Some of the other Joniettes do. Most of the Jontons do. And seems like _all_ of the Daliettes do."

Camryn folded her arms across her chest tightly. "The other viewpoints don't matter. I intend to win this competition. In fact, I _will_ win it. And even if I don't, it's not like the producers for _Fake_ would ever agree to film a story from any of the other ships, right?"

"The point is to _write_ well enough to win, not to be allowed to submit our personal view of how the show should be," Francie said. "I certainly wouldn't expect them to use a script about Dalton and Mariette boinking like bunnies, just like you shouldn't expect them to use a story about Jon proposing amid flowers and rainbows and immediately wanting a house and kids and a car payment."

Camryn looked as if she couldn't decide whether to spit or throw a pillow; she settled back into her wicker chair and looked thunderous.

"No comeback?" Tessa inquired sweetly.

"Oh, blow it out both bloomer legs."

Juliet nudged Lassiter's arm and he glanced at her. "Oh, right," he said, interpreting her '_do something_' expression. "As entertaining as all this is, we are actually interested in finding out who poisoned the water. I'm sure _you're_ all innocent," he said with only the slightest of sarcastic tones, "and I'm sure you think all your shipmates are innocent, but someone in this house definitely tampered with the bottles, and you guys outnumber the house staff and production crew, so let's hear it."

"What does the _psychic_ think?" Camryn asked, and her sarcastic tone wasn't slight at all.

"Well," Lassiter shot back, "when we talk to him we'll find out if he's as good as _you_ all are at seeing things no one _else_ can see."

She glared at him, her big dark eyes giving him a moment's pause. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I don't think _you_ have any idea what I'm talking about either," he retorted. "Just tell me why I should believe none of the Joniettes did this."

"Look. Jon is one of the _good_ guys. We love him. He wouldn't poison anyone, so neither would we." She said it as if no one could possibly challenge her logic.

Tessa, however, did. "You do realize he's not a real person, right?"

"You do realize he's _straight_, right?"

Francie sighed. "People do terrible things out of love all the time."

"Oh, yeah? Like write stories where supposedly noble Dalton tries to steal Mariette away from Jon? How cool is that?"

Tessa shook her head. "Girl, you need a beta to check you out before you talk."

"Yeah? Well, maybe in your demented little AU, you need to find out what real whumping is."

"Uh-huh. So exactly how many Mary Sues do you have hidden on your laptop, sweetie?"

"The same as the number of Mpregs on yours," Camryn snarled.

Lassiter gazed at Juliet. "This language they're speaking. What is it?"

She sighed. "I'm not familiar with all the jargon. I think AU is alternate universe, and—"

He held up one hand. "No, no more. I think you just explained everything right here. Ladies!" he barked.

But Camryn was still on a tear. "You know what's funny?"

He sighed. "I was _just _about to make a list."

"I'm a nice person. Writing Joniette makes me happy. I like bunnies and puppies and I'm nice to all my aunts. But I've been stuck in this house for two months and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of everyone here. I actually pushed back starting college for this, but I'm doing it because I want to win, and I don't feel like being nice anymore!"

"Maybe when you're a little older you might learn how to handle unpleasant things without alienating everyone else," Francie commented without rancor.

"And maybe if you were a little younger you could still—"

"Enough!" snapped Juliet. "Camryn. Tessa. Francie. Do you understand that a crime has been committed? And that if it's traced back to any of you or the groups you represent, there'll be no more competition, no script for a TV show, and very likely no college?" The last was directed at Camryn, who glowered but subsided.

Tessa said, "Look. My team is cool. After two months of 24/7 bonding, I know none of the Jontons have it in them to try to wreck everything like that."

"Same here," Francie said. "Not to mention I can't imagine any of us wanting to poison ourselves."

Lassiter frowned. "Six in your group were affected, right? Out of ten?"

"Yes, and before you ask," she said with a smile, "the other four are especially nice people."

"Could have been one of the six, to throw off suspicion," Juliet remarked. "How is everyone doing? You were one of the victims, if I remember."

Francie grimaced. "It's like the aftermath of a stomach bug. The doctors said the poison wasn't particularly strong, which was good news. But Detective, even if you were right and one of the six is the culprit: why? We were all back here the next day and nothing changed. We're still writing, watching _Fake_ and squabbling."

"We've been getting a _lot_ of pointless cases lately," Lassiter said. "That could be it."

"So Camryn," Tessa challenged, "what's _your_ answer?"

"A civil one," Juliet warned her.

Camryn said coldly, "Apart from the fact that I know none of my team did it, or _could_ have done it, Francie's right. There was no point to doing it at all, so why would we?"

"I was thinking spite," Tessa muttered.

"Stop," Juliet warned again.

"I'm done," Lassiter announced, because he was. "What about you, O'Hara? You done?"

Her response was to stand up immediately. "Yep. Thanks, ladies." With a glance to him, she started out the door; with _no_ glance to the women, he went after her.

In the hall, she said, "Do you think there's anything left of the kitchen?"

"Stalk of celery. Maybe some stale croutons. At least one pea."

Juliet laughed, and he felt good despite this frustrating nearly-non-case, and when she pushed open the door to the kitchen he wasn't surprised that Shawn and Gus had not only met the cook but convinced her to whip up some scrambled eggs for them.

"Oh! Look, Amanda, here's our favorite detectives." Shawn beamed, obviously over his earlier trauma. "I think you might need to scramble a few more eggs. Doesn't Lassie need fattening up?"

Amanda looked between Lassiter and Juliet. "Do I have to answer that?"

"Please don't," Gus said from his spot at the head of the table, where he was eating a piece of pumpkin bread.

Amanda returned to her egg preparation, apparently grateful.

"Spencer, Guster, hall, now." Lassiter put his hand on the door, waiting.

"Who's Hall?"

From Gus: "And where's Oates?"

"Check the pantry," Shawn advised. "That's where _I_ keep oats."

"Shawn," Juliet said firmly. "We need to talk to you, and we're armed."

"Never ignore the lady with the gun, Shawn."

"Gus, my father taught me _that_ when I was still sleeping in onesies."

"That was only last year," Gus countered, and Shawn laughed, and Juliet stepped over and latched onto his arm, dragging him into the hall through the door Lassiter already held open.

"Fine," he said breathlessly. "What's more important than our eggs?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said sarcastically, "maybe that you're being paid to help solve a _case_?"

Shawn and Gus looked at each other for a moment. "Pretty sure we disagree, Jules, but I see your point."

Lassiter let out a sigh. "Between fondling bras, pissing off thirty women and emptying the pantry, have you picked up anything about these people regarding the poisoning or not?"

"Of course I have," Shawn insisted.

"Namely?"

"Well, it wasn't Alison. Or Charlie Young."

"Who the hell is Charlie Young?"

"Dude. You didn't meet Charlie?"

"This house is filled with women, Spencer. And Frank Stephens, who… well never mind."

"What about Whir? You saw Whir. Charlie's the other camera man, man!"

"Shawn," Juliet interrupted, "have you discovered anything or not?"

Gus said, "_I _have. I discovered these women are maniacs, and I have a bruise where that Nicole chick hit my shoulder."

"Hang on," Lassiter said. "Which one's _Alison_?"

"The crazy brunette. Lassie, don't you pay attention?"

Lassiter once again suppressed the urge to backhand him. "So in other words, fondling bras, pissing off thirty women and emptying the pantry _is_ all you've accomplished. Thanks, Spencer. Helpful as always." He turned his back on them, trying to decide the next move, knowing Juliet would probably make nice and tell him later he was too hard on The Beaver.

But to his surprise, he heard Juliet say, "Yeah, Shawn. You've brought _so_ much to this investigation so far," just before she came to stand in front of Lassiter, arms folded, frown in place. "We should get the water bottles over to the lab and—"

"Hang on," Shawn said. "Just hang on. I'm serious about who's been eliminated, you know. Those two plus all of the Daliettes. Also Kirsten—and it is _Kirsten_, by the way; she got quite irate when Gus called her Kristen."

"Stop lying, Shawn. _You_ called her Kristen."

"Potato, tomahto. Anyway, I really don't think any of the women who were in the great room for the tussle had anything do to with this."

Lassiter turned reluctantly. "_Because_?"

"Because of the wonderful things he does—"

Gus punched him in the arm. "Stop it. Lassiter's about to _kill_ you."

"Thank you, Guster. Spencer?"

Shawn was rubbing his arm, wincing. "It's what I do, man. You know that. Besides, on a more earthly plane, since I know you dig that sort of thing, none of the contestants had anything to gain by poisoning the others. If you wanted to remove competition, you'd pick 'em off one by one to prolong the contest. You don't just take them all out at once because then the whole show shuts down."

"Right. That's what we thought, too." Juliet tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "So that leaves the crew and house staff."

"A much more manageable number of suspects," Lassiter agreed. "All right, let's collect the water and get back to the station."

But before he could act on this, Katherine and Frank came out of the great room, trailed by the camera operators. "Thanks, Whir," Katherine said absently. She seemed to have become exhausted in the short time since they'd last seen her, and Frank was a mere shell of a man.

Seeing them, she looked wearier. "Shawn—that is your name, right? You and your friend managed to rile up my ladies to a fever pitch of ire. They're in there fighting amongst themselves now like Chihuahuas on crack, and that includes the Daliettes, who until _you_ showed up were really a pretty docile bunch."

"What did _I _do?"

"You renewed their arguments with each other, to nearly unfilmable levels. Thanks _so_ much."

He glanced at Gus. "I'm getting thanked a lot but no one seems very sincere."

"He also convinced your cook to make them an early lunch," Juliet said helpfully in a way Lassiter knew wasn't even remotely _intended_ to be helpful. Damn, she could still surprise him.

Katherine's expression was glacial. "Really? What is it?"

"Eggs and sausage," Shawn said, his glee undisguised, "and I bet they're ready."

"Good. I _am_ a bit peckish. Thanks for thinking of me." She moved to block the kitchen door and stared at them. Even the spikes of her blonde hair looked icy.

"Um, can we get by?" He sounded plaintive. Gus _looked_ plaintive.

"No, but you can get _lost_."

While Shawn was flinching as if physically struck, Frank sort of… _lurched_ by and on down the hallway. He might have been whistling, but more likely he was moaning. They all watched him silently.

"All right," Lassiter said impatiently after Frank was out of sight. "What's the deal with him? I get this is a high-stress job but the man's a basket case."

Katherine rubbed her temples. "He's the best assistant I've ever had, but he was about to move to Chicago for a lucrative and far steadier position in his father's business when this project was greenlighted. I convinced him to stay for one last job while his family went on ahead, but he's been going crazy missing his wife and kids, and with the hours we keep, he hasn't been able to get home since we started." She gestured half-heartedly at the great room. "As you know, this has been an unusually stressful project, much worse than we anticipated. I just need him to hold it together for another month."

"Since you're busy talking, may I go have my eggs?" Gus asked politely.

"That's why you were trying to get him a three-day-weekend," Lassiter mused.

"Yes, but it can't happen now unless these women settle down enough to let us get some decent footage." She poked her head in the kitchen door. "Amanda? We're going to need the tiramisu early today."

"And Gus's eggs," Shawn said. "Oh, and mine."

"We'll just take the water bottles," Juliet interrupted. "And we'll take these two out at the same time."

"I hope she doesn't mean 'take us out' the way Lassie usually means 'take us out," Shawn stage-whispered to Gus.

Juliet smiled coolly. "It's _good_ to have hope."

"I'm going to the car," Gus said flatly. "Goodbye."

Shawn's uneasy gaze flitted from Lassiter to Juliet and back. "Uh. He probably needs help."

When the massive front doors had closed, Katherine relaxed. "Please don't let them come back."

Lassiter's smile was deliberately faint. "Are you familiar with the expression about trying to nail jello to a tree?"

"No, but I've got a nail_gun_, and if they turn up here again I'd be happy to try it out on them and one of the trees in the back yard."

"I hear that," Juliet murmured.

Hell, Lassiter could _see_ it. He smiled. Maybe this case wasn't so frustrating after all.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**. . . . **

**. . .**

Whir, the tall smiling cameraman who reminded Lassiter of someone but he just couldn't think _who_, carried the box of water bottles out to the Crown Vic and then skedaddled.

Katherine walked with them. "As soon as we figured out this was the only thing all of the sick women had in common, we moved the box to my office and called you guys. The hospital didn't tell us what kind of poison it was, only that there was definitely 'something in the water.'" She handed Juliet a plastic bag. "These are the six empty bottles."

"We'll end up fingerprinting everyone," Lassiter said. "Although it's probably safe to assume the perp is one of your own and that he wore gloves."

"He?" She was surprised.

"I don't like to say 'they' when I'm talking about one person," he assured her.

Amused, Katherine gave him a nod and a comment about appreciating a guy who valued the English language, and Lassiter thought for a fleeting moment that Juliet's frown was… well, surely it couldn't have been possessive. She probably just had a headache from the bright sunshine.

Dr. Rodahill came out of the house, headed for the sleek black convertible parked next to the Crown Vic. "Detectives, if there's anything else I can help you with, let me know."

"Actually, I do have a followup question," Lassiter said, only half-sure he wanted to ask. "These women… these _ships_. Do any of them have any…" He hesitated, then figured what the hell. "Are they all delusional?"

Rodahill and Katherine both laughed. "Oh," he said, "as individuals, I'd say most of these ladies are doing okay. But sure, they cling to some unlikely beliefs, the way we all do. _I_ still believe that one day I won't have to wait in line at Starbucks."

"Seriously," Juliet said, as if following Lassiter's line of thought (which she may have been; she was pretty good at reading him). "Are any of the ships seaworthy?"

He grinned. "Nice pun, Detective. Let's see." He leaned back against his car and thought it over. "For the Jontons and Joniettes, there's an aspect to their daydreams I'm not sure they've really considered. Take the Jontons. Apart from insisting these two straight guys are really either gay or bi, they present as their basic premise that if Dalton would just _admit_ he only doesn't get along with Jon because he's denying his feelings for him, then the two of them could live happily ever after. The problem is, they're also saying that Dalton should be more accepting of being treated badly by Jon. They're saying it's okay for Jon to be pushy and rude and constantly one-up him; that Dalton should simply _relax_ about having Jon invade his space and his home and undercut him at work. They're saying, in fact, that Dalton should make himself the lesser—not an equal—and submit to the whims of someone who in all likelihood will never treat him any better than he has all along." He scratched his jaw briefly. "In most of the stories, Jon gets to be Jon and Dalton has to do all the adapting. It's a given that Dalton is the only one who'll have to change, because even when Jon promises _he_ will, they both know it won't stick."

"'_I'm the baby; gotta love me_,'" Juliet mused softly.

Katherine zoomed in on that. "Did you just quote an unbelievably obscure TV sitcom from twenty years ago?"

Juliet smiled. "Yeah. Blame Shawn."

Lassiter certainly would. "What about the Joniettes?"

Putting his hands in his pockets, Rodahill studied the gravel drive for a moment. "It's sort of the same. Jon doesn't treat Mariette with the same _type_ of underlying disrespect, but he does disrespect her nonetheless—her wishes, her work boundaries. His core belief system is that he's never wrong and everyone should just go along with his crazy ideas. That means her will is trumped most of the time, and oddly, though she seems like a strong character in other ways, the show's writers have her just going along with Jon, to the point where it sometimes makes her hard to respect. If they were an actual couple, I can't see it lasting very long unless she, like Dalton in the Jonton scenario, agreed to submit herself to Jon's larger-than-life personality, or, and this is _far_ more unlikely, Jon changed."

"People don't change," Katherine said flatly before Lassiter could.

"They can," Juliet insisted, "if they're motivated."

Rodahill countered, "They can change some things, yes, but not basic character elements. Jon has been consistently portrayed as a guy who's fully aware he's avoiding maturity and responsibility and is pretty much okay with that. He doesn't see how small his world is, only that he's king of it—and he's been operating the way he does for his entire life, so in his view it's working out just fine. While he _could_ learn to put Mariette first, it would be an ongoing struggle the likes of which he's never had to deal with before. Making that kind of effort isn't like quitting smoking or cutting back on fatty foods. Or Starbucks," he added with a grin. "In my professional opinion, which you'll recall is questionable because we're talking about people who don't exist, the Joniette ship would inevitably sink unless Mariette abandoned her own self-respect and learned to be happy in Jon's shadow."

"That leaves the Daliettes," Lassiter prodded, unaccountably curious. He noted Juliet's very intent gaze at Rodahill as well.

The doctor shrugged. "Actually, it really is the most likely of the three ships to sail off into the sunset. The Daliette fanfic—and I read everything the contestants submitted for _FakeFic_—generally takes the liberty of presuming Dalton has already, privately, begun making changes in outlook and behavior out of a sincere desire to not be alone anymore, regardless of whether or not he ends up with Mariette. But Mariette, having worked with him so long, knows him inside and out, so even without the fanfic 'adjustments,' the possibility of a relationship forming and lasting is much greater than it is for the other two ships based on their shared understanding of each other. She already knows his shortcomings and doesn't hesitate to call him out when necessary, and whereas Jon would just merrily go on being Jon in such a scenario, Dalton does make some effort, which Mariette appreciates."

"I like Dalton a hell of a lot," Katherine said, her smile a bit wicked. "For what it's worth."

"Whumping," Juliet said suddenly. "That's when a character getting hurt is the primary point of a story, right?"

"Yep. There's a lot of that in the Jon-centric stories."

"I thought they _liked_ the characters?" Lassiter asked, puzzled.

"Oh, they do. But there's a whole sub-genre about hurting them—damn near killing them, in fact—just to…" Rodahill shook his head, apparently a bit puzzled himself. "Sometimes it's about having someone comfort them, which then leads to romance, but sometimes it seems to be just about making the character as miserable as possible—everything from the flu to broken bones to cancer to months in a coma after being tortured by a sadistic killer. You know, happy cheery stuff. Death fics are common too; they'll take whoever's most important to Jon and kill him or her off, just to have Jon in misery. Occasionally they kill off Jon himself just to show everyone _else_ in misery. I've never been able to decide whether it's a sign of grave depression in the writer, or an unhealthy need to hurt the ones they love? I haven't studied this area much and of course none of the stories which won for this competition were whump or death fics."

Lassiter couldn't stop frowning. He was afraid his forehead might be stuck in a permanent state of annoyed confusion. "Those kinds of stories come from the Daliettes, I assume?"

"Oh no," Rodahill said with a smile. "They're always the Joniettes and Jontons. The Daliettes don't write about Jon much at all, and what they write about Dalton is seldom about inflicting physical pain but rather recovering from past emotional pain. Whump seems to be a specialty of the ones who love Jon the most. Ironic, huh?"

"Yeah. And I'm thrilled this case is broadening my vocabulary." Lassiter glanced at Juliet when she laughed softly. "What? Who uses _whump_ in casual conversation?"

She only grinned, and Katherine said, "You know, Doc, I never asked you before, but did you watch _Fake_ before you took this job?"

He chuckled. "A little. Most of my babbling is based on the last few months' hard-core immersion in it."

"Did you have an opinion on the ships before then?" she persisted.

Laughing now, he unlocked the door to his car and slid in. "Sure I did, but don't tell my wife. I thought Mariette should run off with _me_."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Back at the station, after a pleasant and peaceful stop for lunch at a seaside fish joint they'd never tried before, Lassiter and Juliet were soon summoned to speak to the Chief.

Karen looked tired. "What's going on with _FakeFic_?"

Lassiter sat in the chair next to Juliet. "We took the water and the empties to the lab for testing. I told them you wanted a rush on it." He waited for her to contradict him, but no censure was forthcoming. "Apart from that, it appears no one stood to gain from this act. Any significant sabotage of the show would result in the project being cancelled entirely, and everyone would lose."

"How very unhelpful. I hope there's more."

"There is, but he's right, Chief." Juliet had a lapful of folders, and started to sort through them.

"However, if this wasn't just the prank of a sociopath," Lassiter said, "then there's only one other option."

Juliet finished for him, still looking through the folders. "Which is that we might need to expand our definition of 'gain.'"

The Chief's interest was piqued. "Go on."

They had discussed it some over lunch, when Lassiter wasn't alternately distracted by the play of sunlight on Juliet's golden hair and valiantly re-focusing on the case. It was just that she seemed so sane, so restful, and so blessedly normal (while still being a mystery in the way all women would always be somewhat of a mystery to him) after the assortment of females he'd met during the morning.

Holding up a copy of the informational packet which had been provided to all the contestants, Juliet said, "The big prize is twenty grand, a script filmed by _Fake_, and as much on-set time as needed to see it through. The second and third place winners get ten grand, a chance to submit scripts with no guarantee of acceptance, and two days on-set to gawk."

"The remaining contestants," Lassiter continued, "get five grand each for lasting the entire three months."

"So?" Karen was puzzled.

"So," Juliet explained, "we were thinking that maybe the point was simply to reduce the number of contestants."

"I'm not following, O'Hara."

Lassiter took it up. "If, as the weeks went by, one of the contestants realized she wasn't going to take first prize—"

"_She_?" echoed Juliet with a grin.

He had to grin back. "_She_," he reiterated, "might still stick it out for the five grand. But O'Hara discovered in the prize information an interesting little addendum."

Juliet flipped open the folder. "If a contestant bails before three months, she goes home empty-handed, lucky to have her airfare paid. It's not exactly worded like that, but you get the idea. However, the early departure of any contestant means her five grand is distributed among the others who do stay."

"Ah," Karen said, getting it. "So the more people who drop out, the larger the pot share for each of the survivors. If 'survivors' is the best word."

"With this bunch, it is," Lassiter assured her grimly.

"So our game plan is to look at the contestants more closely, using the production staff's background research for starters, and concentrating on which of them had visitors a few days ago." Juliet sat back, pleased.

"We don't really think anyone planned this as far as two months back, so we're going to start with anyone who had any kind of connection to hypodermics and poisons." Lassiter gestured to the other folder in Juliet's lap. "We have a list of people who were admitted on the last two visiting days, and we're ready to start background checks."

Karen smiled, more relaxed now. "Don't let me slow you down, detectives. What did Shawn bring to the table while he was there?"

Lassiter glanced at Juliet, who said neutrally, "He reached the same conclusion we did about no one having any real motive. He also raided the kitchen, alienated nearly all of the contestants and got the producer to threaten him with a nailgun."

"Well, to be fair," Lassiter amended, "that was _after_ he left."

"Oh, and he played with a bra and later got beaten up by a girl," she added cheerfully.

Rubbing her temples, Karen asked cautiously, "And Guster? Please tell me he did better."

Juliet smiled. "But Chief, you've asked us to be honest with you at all times."

Karen's eye roll was considerable. "I'm incredibly glad I asked. Thank you. You may go back to work."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Juliet, before they left the _FakeFic_ house, had asked Katherine for copies of the stories submitted by the contestants which, along with successful background checks, had won them their places on the show.

Curled up on her sofa at home that night, she read through the stories, one from each ship in turn until she'd finished them all and it was well past one a.m. Cold cinnamon tea on the coffee table, she lay back on the pillows staring at the ceiling, pondering what could be learned about the women who wrote them.

She'd offered Carlton his own copies but he'd given her a look and said dryly that he'd prefer to maintain his ignorance (no doubt because she told him over their very pleasant lunch what 'Mpreg' meant).

The writing, as she expected from the seriousness of the stakes here, was good, far better than the average bit of fan fiction she'd read over the years in her ever-decreasing spare time. But there were clear differences between the ships in how they treated the three main characters.

It was as Dr. Rodahill suggested: the Joniettes thought so highly of Jon that it followed Mariette could find no flaw in him either.

The Joniette Jon was a man of many facets who could simply _choose_ to be the perfect man for Mariette, making her blissfully happy in every regard as he smoothly transitioned from his solo life into husband, doting father, responsible bill-payer and every dream come true.

The Jonton Jon was more like he was on the show itself, and the writers obviously felt Dalton merely needed to see the light—how Jon's invasive, thoughtless, selfish and occasionally hurtful actions were signs of his _love_ for him—to make him embrace the idea of a male lover with relatively little hesitation.

The Joniette Dalton was cold and impatient, a constantly cranky authority figure Jon was always rebelling against.

The Jonton Dalton was a deeply insecure, damaged man whom only Jon (presumably by way of the aforementioned invasive, thoughtless, selfish and occasionally hurtful actions) could 'heal.'

The Daliette Dalton was both more vulnerable than he was on the show and more ready to work hard to become something better so that he could escape his loneliness, but she had to admit, the basis for both aspects _was_ there on screen. It was true the Daliette writers made him more of a romantic figure than he was on the show, but at heart, what made the stories work was the partnership between the two, and that was clear both on paper and on film.

Mariette was shining-eyed and lovestruck in the Joniettes, quick to forgive Jon his transgressions and relatively unbothered by his treatment of Dalton; she was like a kid sister or bubbly friend in the Jontons, and a more thoughtful and realistic adult in the Daliettes. In the Daliettes she got equal time with Dalton, but in the others she was very much subordinate to the men.

But did all of these various treatments tell her anything about the women sequestered in the _FakeFic_ house? She wasn't sure. It _could_ be said that the greater the divide between the show and the stories, the more likely it was that the author had less of a grip on reality, but that was a bit harsh, especially since it was hardly fair to call any TV show (including so-called reality shows) 'reality.' Five grand was five grand, after all, and people of all sorts had done far worse for far less.

Maybe the answer lay in comparing the writing skill of the contestants. As Carlton had theorized, one reason to start taking out competitors now might be a realization that winning was impossible. But all of the writing was pretty good. The styles differed—some favored angst and inner dialogue; some were all about comic exchanges; some were sparse and some flowery. She'd have to find out how the judges made their decisions and how much knowledge each contestant had of her competitors' abilities. There'd be no reason to fear losing the contest if you had no idea what you were up against.

Ultimately, Juliet thought as she yawned, it was all fiction. It was a bunch of writers churning out fiction about fictional characters on a TV show which was in turn created by a bunch of writers churning out fiction designed to sell a concept, draw advertisers, and make everyone rich.

_There, that took the romance out of everything_. _Now you can get back to work_.

Still, she fell asleep with a particularly good Daliette story under her cheek.

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE **

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter was pouring his third pretty-darned-good cup of coffee when Shawn and Gus sauntered into the station, so he was mellow enough—especially given the smackdown those two had gotten from a bunch of girls yesterday—to merely nod and return to his desk.

This sort of behavior had the bonus effect of making them nervous, which made the coffee taste even better. He sat back and surveyed his visitors.

"Lassie," Shawn said carefully, "how goes it in the world of flop-eared peace officering?"

Gus frowned. "_I_ don't even know what that means, so most likely Lassiter doesn't either."

"Gus! I'm simply inquiring as to the … well-being… of his investigatory… labors."

"Well, it _sounded_ like you were mangling the English language while insulting his ears."

Juliet walked by with an armful of folders. "Shawn, Gus, leave Carlton alone."

"Lassie," Shawn said—admonishing him?—"You have to stop letting Jules fight your battles for you."

Lassiter stood up smoothly, as always enjoying his height advantage. "I didn't realize we were _fighting_, Spencer. I thought you were babbling about my well-being."

Shawn looked up. "Why yes, yes I am. And how _are_ you, Lassiefrass? I've been so concerned. We should really talk more."

Juliet walked by in the other direction. "No, you shouldn't. And call him by his actual name, Shawn."

Lassiter grinned. "You gotta admit, having an armed officer of _any_ gender ready to back me up isn't so bad. What have _you_ got?"

Shawn's eyes narrowed. "Oh, I don't know. Gus here is pretty good with apple jacks."

"I believe that's breakfast cereal."

"I _can_ eat pretty fast," Gus said.

"Impressive." He raised one eyebrow at Gus, who had the sense to look sheepish.

Shawn tried again. "I meant … those… things kids play with. Those metal thingies with round ends. And you throw a little ball down and—"

"Jacks, Shawn. And unless you think I'm going to throw some at Lassiter, that's not really much of a defense." Gus looked at Lassiter with concern. "I'm not planning to throw any at you. In case you were wondering."

"Good call, Guster. Now what can the Santa Barbara Police Department do for you this morning? Because we're a little busy here."

Juliet came by again but before she could speak, Shawn said defensively, "Jules, I swear, I haven't been disrespectful in at least eighteen seconds. I'm here about the _FakeFic_ case."

"We haven't gotten the food bill yet so we don't know how much your check will be cut," Juliet said, joining them now, arms crossed, giving two-thirds of a stink-eye to Shawn and the other third to Gus.

"That is so unfair. Psychic visions are physiologically—nay, emotionally—draining, Jules, _draining_, and cheesy comestibles, along with non-cheesy comestibles, are the best way for us to recover."

"_Gus_ doesn't have psychic visions," she challenged.

"Neither does Spencer," Lassiter muttered. Normally this would earn a sharp look from Juliet, but today she only kept glaring at Shawn.

"Now, Lassie, you know that's not right. If I didn't have psychic visions, how would I know you had to pay the biscuit lady eighty cents to make out with her?"

Juliet's attention shifted to Lassiter abruptly. "You made out with the biscuit lady?"

"And possibly some dude," Gus said helpfully.

"_What_? Spencer, you know that's crap."

"Which part?" Juliet demanded.

"I did not pay anybody any money at any time to make out with me," he said, annoyed and increasingly uncomfortable under the beacon of Juliet's intent blue gaze. "The 'dude' was someone who looked like Vick in passing and _totally_ unrelated to the discussion, the eighty cents was for a sausage biscuit when I was short on change, and it was over two years ago!"

Gus asked, "Did you ever pay her back? Because a man should always pay his debts." He glared at Shawn, who looked as if he had utterly no idea what Gus was talking about.

"Of _course_ I paid her back. Plus a tip."

"When did you make out with her?" Juliet demanded.

"Crap on a cracker," he snapped, noting Shawn's smirk, "it was a one-time beer-related department picnic incident and the only reason they know about it is that I told them when we were looking for your friend Scott."

This didn't help, because she further demanded, "You told _them_ about a make-out session but didn't tell me? Why the hell wouldn't you tell me? I'm your partner!"

There went the good mood. "O'Hara, this is ridiculous. Can we just get back to work?"

"Juliet. Are you _jealous_?" It was Gus asking, genuinely curious.

Hardly, Lassiter thought. More likely she was annoyed because he hadn't told her, but honestly, was he obligated to tell his partner he'd kissed the biscuit lady under the influence of a lot of beer, the fact that she seemed happy to participate, and on that particular afternoon her hair was pulled back and she looked just the slightest little bit like Juliet? No. Of course not.

Juliet was presently giving a full-strength stink-eye to Gus. "Don't be silly. Now get out if you have nothing to tell us about the case."

"Get out even if you do," Lassiter growled at Shawn.

Backing up, hands in the air, Shawn said with excess reasonableness, "I just wanted to see if you needed us to go back to the _FakeFic_ camp. I have a feeling there's more to be learned from the contestants and I'd be _happy_ to go read them all individually if that would help."

"Is this about trying to figure out whose bra you fondled?" Juliet demanded.

He fell silent. Lassiter asked Gus, "Does he have health insurance? And if so, does it cover nailgun injuries? Because that's what Katherine Newton threatened him with if you guys show up there again."

Gus swallowed.

"But if you want to read through the background checks of the thirty contestants, the ten crew, and every visitor they've had for the past few weeks, pull up a chair." Juliet pointed to the stack of folders on her desk.

"Aaaactually, you know, we were here on more of a fly-by basis. Stoppin' in, checkin' in…"

"Chicken out," Lassiter said under his breath.

"He means we gotta go," Gus said. "Because that's what we gotta do. Shawn?" They were gone in less than fifteen seconds.

**. . . . **

**. . .**

Juliet unceremoniously—and silently—dumped half the folders on Carlton's desk and returned to hers to start on the other half. She ignored his exasperated sigh.

The biscuit lady? He made out with _the biscuit lady_? She felt… what was the word… _vexed_. Annoyed. _Cross_. Jeal… no. Not jealous. Never jealous. Why the hell would she be jealous? _Stop it, O'Hara_.

_Stopping_ it, Juliet resolutely worked on the files, definitely not thinking about any stupid biscuit lady selling stupid biscuits and kissing her stupid partner.

"We got lab results," Carlton called from his side of the room after awhile. "Let's go."

Silently, she followed his lean frame down the hall and toward the lab. He slowed to let her catch up with him but she hung back, glowering despite her best intentions.

At the bottom of the stairs, when she was still two steps up, he turned and said directly, "_What_?" Crowding her a little, face to face, his eyes seemed far too blue and far too perceptive, but his glower certainly matched hers.

She pretended not to know what he was talking about, because yeah, that always worked. "_What_ what? Aren't we going to the lab?"

Carlton sighed. "Fine. Just remember you _had_ a chance to vent and let it pass." He strode off and she hurried for real to keep up.

Sheba the lab lady, a fifty-something slightly zaftig and generally pleasant soul, smiled at them over the tops of her glasses. "Detectives! That was quick." Almost but not _quite_ flirtatiously, she added, "Long legs, fast mover, eh?"

Juliet was behind Carlton and couldn't see his reaction, so fortunately he couldn't see hers, which was whatever expression translated to 'I wonder if he ever made out with _her_.' Stepping forward quickly, she greeted Sheba and asked politely for the results of the _FakeFic_ water testing.

"Simple and yet interesting." Sheba crossed over to her desk and retrieved the report. "I tested the water in every bottle, as well as the droplets which remained in the empties. The culprit is Tetrahydrozoline. It's the same stuff used in many over-the-counter eyedrops."

"So obtaining it would be no problem at all."

"Correct, Detective." She smiled at him, and again, Juliet thought it was _almost_ flirtatious. "One little bottle would have been ample supply for the whole case."

"That's the simple part, I assume," Juliet said. "What's the interesting part?"

Sheba turned her essentially benign smile on Juliet now. "The interesting part is that it's practically not there at all. It doesn't take much Tetrahydrozoline to make a person sick, but as far as I've determined, the amount present in these bottles was only about half of that. Maybe less. It can't have been intended to kill anyone."

Carlton mused, "Could someone who didn't know much about poisons have overestimated its potency?"

"Doubtful. If you knew enough about it to know its effects at all, you'd know how much to use to get results. It's not generally fatal anyway. My feeling is this was meant to make the victims _slightly_ sick. Sick enough to get noticed, but not sick enough to actually endanger lives."

Juliet looked at Carlton. "Enough to make it clear it was deliberate and potentially convince a few contestants to drop out of the running?"

He nodded. "And since it was the Daliettes who were targeted, it's either a Joniette or someone framing the Joniettes. Which could be a Jonton, too."

"Or a Daliette trying to cover all the possible blame bases."

"So _everyone_, in other words. Including any of the Daliettes who got sick."

"Back to square one." Juliet gave Sheba a polite nod. "Thank you, Sheba. Is there anything else you can tell us?"

Sheba gave it a moment's thought. "You can get further with a kind word and a gun than with only a kind word?"

They looked at her, surprised; Carlton grinned. "You should have been a cop, Sheba."

_Oh _yeah_, he made out with _her_ too_, Juliet thought, but kept the smile plastered on her face. She was back on the stairs before he tugged at her arm to stop her. "What?"

He said, "What is the _problem_?" He was annoyed. He was… well, he was confused, and being confused made him annoyed, and she knew this about him because she knew him, period.

Before she had any inkling it was coming, she heard herself ask defiantly, "Is there anyone at the station you _haven't_ sucked face with?"

His eyes grew wide with horror. "The _hell_? There's _no one_ at the station I've… dammit, O'Hara, the biscuit lady was an anomaly and I don't—why the hell are you so bothered by this?"

"I… I… I hate that Shawn and Gus knew before me!" she said lamely.

"They didn't! Not at the time, they didn't. Good Lord, this is the stupidest argument we've ever had. Hands down." He brushed by her on his way up the stairs, muttering, "If you have any more ammo, you'll have to shoot me at my desk."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

By lunchtime she seemed to have calmed down, and they went to a diner near the station where thankfully they were joined by Dobson and Miller, saving Lassiter from having to figure out exactly what Juliet's mood was.

He didn't understand why she'd been so annoyed by the biscuit lady revelation. In the past she'd taken a seemingly happy interest in his failed attempts at a love life, curious and willing to listen to the _very_ little he was willing to say about them. The last time he could remember her being downright freaked out about another woman was when he'd been interested in Karen Vick's sister, and truthfully he had no explanation for that himself except that Barbara's natural self-assurance and power had been a turn-on at the time. Now it just made him uneasy. At any rate, Juliet's issue was only that it was unwise—and she was right—for him to even contemplate involvement with his boss' sister, especially given how the two of them fought.

The biscuit lady, in comparison, wasn't even on the radar. Their one-time dalliance was brief, PG-rated, and ancient history. Damn Spencer for yanking it out of his stupid ass and derailing a perfectly good morning.

However, lunch with neutral third parties took the edge off everything, and afterwards, they returned to the _FakeFic_ house to talk again with Katherine Newton. When they arrived, there was a minion stationed at the door (as Katherine had said was the norm), and he directed them to go through the house to the back door, since the filming was taking place outside.

The thirty contestants were sprawled out on blankets and lawn chairs, the last of a picnic spread visible on the stone tables. It was a pleasant sunny day and the cameramen moved through the yard honing in on whomever Katherine told them to. Frank Stephens was walking along the edge of the property, sometimes standing on tiptoe to look over the stone wall. Lassiter wondered if he were contemplating making a break for it, and felt like yelling _go man go_!

Katherine spotted Lassiter and Juliet and waved. Issuing a 'take five' command into her radio, she got up from her director's chair to join them. "Hello, SBPD. What do you have for me?"

"There was indeed something in the water," Lassiter confirmed.

"What was it?"

"Tetrahydrozoline. It's found in—"

"Eyedrops," she said. "I used to work on a crime series." She ran a hand through her spiky hair, restless. "Interesting. I mean, not good, but interesting. Any theories?"

"We'll be calling in the visitors tomorrow but it's going to be nigh on impossible to prove anyone possessing or even delivering eyedrops to a contestant had anything to do with this. It's just too common a product."

Juliet said, "Katherine, what can you tell us about how these contestants write? I mean, how well do they know how the _other_ contestants write?"

She'd told Lassiter her theory this morning before The Big Blow and he liked it, and he'd like it even more if Katherine gave the right sort of answer.

Katherine complied. "Each contestant got in on the strength of two stories apiece. Whether they've shared those with each other, I can't say. But every few days we issue writing challenges and they have to critique each other to determine who best answered the challenge. It's part of keeping the conflict alive by forcing them to interact. So in the past few months, they've all seen each other's writing. What are you thinking?"

Instead of answering, Juliet persisted, "Has it become clear that any of the contestants are better—or worse—than others? In any consistent way?"

The director's smile was slow. "You mean, has it turned out that the stories submitted for the show were in fact the _best_ a particular contestant could do?"

"Something like that."

"Of course. A handful of the women just aren't…" She stopped, looking a bit wry. "Well, they're just not as good as their submission stories suggested. Maybe it's the pressure, maybe it's being out of their element—it's hard to say. But yeah, some of them do show clear signs of mediocrity."

"Do they… know?" Juliet's tone was careful.

Lassiter looked past her to the two-plus dozen women out in the beautiful yard in the sunshine. At the moment, peace reigned, and they appeared to be relaxed and at the very least able to tolerate each other's company despite their Three Great Divisions.

Katherine followed his gaze as she answered. "A few of them do. A few are in denial."

He said, "We're going to want to speak to the ones who know there's no chance they'll win."

If he was a lucky man, she wouldn't make him explain why.

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Katherine took them to a small office off the main hall, and Frank Stephens brought them a pot of coffee and some mugs.

"Amanda just made some cinnamon biscuits," he said without any discernible pretense of caring. "I can bring you some if you like."

Juliet said tartly, "Oh, is she _your_ biscuit lady?"

_Son of a bitch_, Lassiter thought, and snapped, "We'll pass, thanks." He would not, could not, look at her.

Thankfully, she let it drop. "How are you, Frank?" she asked, merely polite now.

The man was pale, listless, and reeked of depression. An idea popped into Lassiter's brain. "_Are_ you all right?" he asked abruptly. "I never met you before yesterday so maybe this is your usual pallor but you look sick. Did you drink any of that water?"

Frank looked at him with apparent surprise. "Me? Sick? Physically? Me?" Then, "I have a pallor?"

"And a love of questions, apparently. I was hoping you'd _answer_ this one."

Frank shook his head. "No. I'm fine. I'm not _fine_ fine but I'm fine. Creamer?"

Juliet took it out of his hands. "Frank? Do you understand why he's asking?"

"I understand how much I want to get out of this place." He opened the door. "I couldn't give a rat's ass, or really any other part of a rat, if I'm sick."

"Stephens," Lassiter barked, getting to his feet. "If you're sick, on the heels of six women being poisoned, we need to know. You could be another victim."

His faint smile was sardonic. "That would be far too easy, Detective Lassiter. Staying here, alive and well and tortured by this devil's swarm of pure feminine evil, is my personal and seemingly permanent hell."

"Don't be shy," Lassiter muttered. "Tell us what you _really_ think." He heard Juliet's muffled laughter, and couldn't help but grin at her. _And just twenty seconds ago you were pissed off_. _Of course, twenty seconds ago, _she_ was pissed off too._

Frank was unfazed; as he stepped out into the hall, Katherine came back in with a file folder and closed the door behind her. "These are my unofficial notes on the contestants who most likely won't make the cut."

"Before we go there, talk to us about Frank," Lassiter requested in his 'this is not a request' tone. "You said he was stressed but that seems like an understatement. Why don't you just give him his long weekend?"

Katherine sighed heavily, pulling out a chair to plop into. "Look, Frank and I have worked together for years. Best assistant ever, hands down, as I told you already. What I may have _failed_ to mention," she said carefully, "since you've only seen me at my sunny and charming best—" She paused to cock an eyebrow at them, daring an argument. "—is that I'm pretty hard on assistants. Which is to say I started this project with four and Frank's the only one who lasted past the second week."

"Ah," said Juliet.

"Yes, ah. So when I say I need him, I _really_ need him. We film every day and if I let him go, we run out of time, or over budget, and we have _got_ to be done on time, period, no ifs ands or buts. I would love to send him home to see his family but I just can't. And if he takes off without my permission, it's not like I'd fire him, but he knows the consequences for the whole project and he wouldn't do that to me." She relaxed some in her chair, and Lassiter could see how tired she was. The spikes in her hair were even a bit droopy.

"Valium," he suggested neutrally.

She laughed shortly. "Past time for that. For either of us. You have any idea what it's like to work so beautifully well with someone everyone thinks is your complete opposite?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation, realizing only after the fact by Katherine's amusement that Juliet had answered at the same time. He cast his partner a slight smile, getting one back. "Yes," he said again. "We do."

Sighing again, she shoved the folder across the table. "Take a look. I need to get back out there."

While Lassiter opened it up, Juliet asked, "You mentioned writing challenges. Who issues those and how are the best entries chosen?"

Katherine said with some glee, "That was another coup. We got _Fake_ to give us a pile of challenges for scenes which could conceivably be used on the show someday. Some are simple, like Jon arguing with his friend about what movie to watch, and some are more complex, like having Dalton and Mariette work on a project around Jon's interference. The contestants pick the best five and one of the _Fake_ writers picks the winner each week. The ladies love it, even when they're not chosen, because they think it's cool to be given the challenge by someone actually working on the show."

Lassiter tapped on the list. "And these are the ones who—?"

"Who've never won a challenge, or even made the top five; who've been given consistent and fair feedback as to why." She grimaced. "Not that they all take it well, or that the feedback is always delivered in the kindest, most considerate way. But it is a reality show, and drama's why we keep the cameras rolling."

There were seven names on the list, which he passed to Juliet. "Do you see what I see?"

Juliet caught it right away. "Yes, I certainly do." She looked up at Katherine, her blue-gray eyes bright. "Camryn? How on earth did that happen?"

Katherine said dryly, "Not every ship captain is a good sailor, you dig? Camryn's winning entries, the ones which landed her a spot on the show, were great. She seemed to be an excellent writer. But since she's been here, very little of that talent has been in evidence. Granted, I personally find her to be an angry little twerp, but remember, the challenges are voted on by the _group_ and the winners chosen by the writer from _Fake_, so it's not my own bias putting her on the list."

"It can't improve her demeanor to continually not make the cut," Juliet observed. "Is she more hostile to the Daliettes because of that? There's only one Daliette name here."

Katherine shrugged. "Honestly, I think she was born hostile."

"You know," Lassiter said carefully, "Dr. Rodahill can't comment on individuals because of confidentiality issues, but _you_ can. Do you think Camryn, if she suspected she was going to lose, might be capable of going after the Daliette team out of sheer spite?"

"Well…" She paused. "I guess so, but if she succeeded, the show would shut down."

Juliet countered, "But if she was losing anyway, what's it to her?"

They exchanged glances.

"Okay," Lassiter finally said, "send the first one in."

"Justine Darrow," Juliet read. "From the good ship Jonton."

"As you wish." Katherine got up and opened the door to leave, and that's when they heard the commotion from the back of the house.

Some of the contestants were rushing inside in full freak-out mode. "Debra collapsed! She just keeled over!"

Katherine got out her phone but Juliet was faster, calling it in while she and Lassiter headed out to the back yard. Debra was lying on her side, women crowding around her, and Lassiter got them cleared back while Juliet bent to see what was going on with the victim.

"I'm going to be sick," said another woman, and then promptly was.

It went downhill from there, to be sure. By the time the ambulances (plural) arrived, four women were sick and Debra wasn't looking good at all.

Lassiter barked commands at the police personnel he'd also summoned, getting samples of all the food out on the tables and snatching up every drink container within sight.

Everything was fresh, Katherine assured him, and brought out an aghast Amanda from the kitchen to swear up and down everything was fresh and cooked properly, and nothing had been sitting in the sun.

Katherine was issuing a non-stop Technicolor spew of profanity (Lassiter would have liked to, but _there were women present_, and he would have pointed it out to Katherine if he hadn't understood it was inherently ridiculous to do so). Juliet was questioning all the contestants about who ate or drank which items. Frank just looked hopeless, doing what Katherine asked when she asked, but otherwise in some kind of pre-zombie state.

By the end of the afternoon, most of the women were a bit ill, but no one felt the need for a trip to the ER, and since it could have been stress-related for most of them, no one wanted to push it. Dr. Rodahill showed up to start soothing the ruffled and seasick feathers, and was promptly swarmed on even by contestants who hadn't particularly wanted to talk to him before now, or so he told the detectives hurriedly as he took a batch of young women back into the house.

Preliminary comparison of the information collected from the women about their picnic lunch revealed that the one thing almost all of them had consumed was red punch from the giant bowl in the center of the table. The women who went off in the ambulances were thought to have had more than a few glasses. And tellingly, the few women who _weren't_ ill hadn't had any punch at all.

Camryn, Juliet murmured to Lassiter, said she felt queasy, but didn't want to go to the ER, claiming she'd only had a little of the punch. But had she, really? Could she be faking? They had more to worry about at the moment, they agreed, and went on with their work.

But in a spare moment, Lassiter called Sheba the Lab Lady directly and told her to test the punch first, and to specifically look for Tetrahydrozoline.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

It was late afternoon when they got back to the station, worn out from the histrionics. Katherine had filmed some of the chaos, Frank at her side, Whir and Charlie Young pointing the cameras wherever she told them to. Some of the contestants had no problem waxing dramatic about the afternoon, but some seemed genuinely traumatized and didn't want to be recorded in that state.

Vick caught them as they passed her office. "Update, please."

Carlton ran his hand through his hair and Juliet thought he looked especially weary, but then she could relate. "As much under control as possible, Chief. The lab has the samples and they know to rush."

"How are the women who went to the hospital?"

"They're being tested for Tetrahydrozoline poisoning," Carlton told her. "As to their status, it's still too soon to tell. The first woman down, Debra Moone, was having seizures in the ambulance."

"I'll check with the hospital myself," Vick said. "What's your take on this?"

Juliet shook her head. "The contestant we're considering most closely is Camryn Parkhurst. If she merely put more of the original bottle of eye drops into the punch, she also dumped the bottle somewhere on the grounds where we haven't found it yet. We have a team still looking."

"Was filming going on at the time?"

"Yes," Carlton said, "and the producer's going to give us copies of footage from when the bowl was placed on the table to the first collapse. But Chief, everyone in the yard knew exactly where the cameras were pointed at all times. No way do we find anything in the footage."

"That's depressing, Carlton," Vick said.

"Yes it is." He rubbed the back of his neck.

Juliet said honestly, "I'd love a cup of coffee right now."

Vick smiled slightly. "Go ahead. You both look worn out. Oh, but be warned—Spencer and Guster are here."

Carlton said nothing; he only turned away with a grim set to his jaw and an icy cast to his blue eyes.

Juliet didn't rush to keep up with him; she wasn't in the mood for Shawn-ness right now herself. Which was too bad, because Shawn was in her chair, feet up on her desk, thumbing through one of her case files, with Gus seated next to him, engrossed in the contents of a second folder.

She gave Shawn's feet a rough shove and snatched the folder out of his hand, giving Gus a death glare for the half-second it took him to snap his folder closed, drop it on her desk, exit the chair and stand ten feet away looking innocent.

Shawn protested, "Jules! I was almost to the end of the story!"

Glancing down, she realized the folder contained the batch of Joniette stories she'd brought back that morning. He reached for it, but she pulled it away again. "Shawn, why are you snooping through my files?"

"Because we were hired to work this case with you, remember? And besides, I've divined quite a lot reading those stories."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Don't fall for it, O'Hara," Carlton said from his desk, but he still wasn't looking up, ostensibly focused on his computer screen.

"Too late, Lassie," Shawn said triumphantly. "She already asked. And what I've divined is that the women in that house love Jon with all their hearts and souls, and since he's such a very enormously cool guy, perhaps even a truly great man, not one of them could _ever_ behave in a way counter to his life-loving, people-friendly philosophy. If he only liked pineapple, I'd be in love with him myself."

Carlton got up to fetch coffee, and with his back to them, could clearly be heard to say "Wait for iiiit…"

Gus frowned at him. Juliet could not hold back a smirk. "Shawn, right now our number one suspect is the leader of the Joniette pack."

"Whoomp, there it is," Gus said, sharing Juliet's smirk. "I told you no good would come of hero-worshipping a fake guy from a show called _Fake_."

"Gus, don't be Ian Mitchell from The Bay City Rollers. These stories are good. They're microcosmic bits of literary stardust, capturing Jon in the glory I hope one day will cast its golden light on me."

"Ian Mitchell?" Juliet asked, puzzled.

"Exactly, Jules. Exactly."

She slapped the folders down on her desk. "So in other words, while we were investigating another round of poisoning at the _FakeFic_ house, you two were kicking back here reading short stories. Excellent."

"Typical," muttered Carlton. He stepped between Shawn and Gus to pick up the folder Gus had given up. "Guster? Is there a particular reason you were reading _Jonton_ stories?"

"Another poisoning? Jules, that's awful. Were any Joniettes hurt? Please say no."

She rolled her eyes.

Gus studiously ignored Carlton, who smiled somewhat evilly and took his coffee back to his desk. "We didn't _only_ read stories, Juliet."

Shawn smiled brightly. "That's right. We also tracked down the biscuit lady and got her number for Lassie."

Juliet instantly wanted to slap all three men with a single colossal swipe. "Get out, Shawn."

He relented. "I'm kidding. She got married since then. She said he was a good kisser, though."

"Spencer!" roared Carlton. "Out! NOW!"

Gus was already gone, and when Juliet reached for her tape dispenser, having some loose idea about taping Shawn's 'cavernous piehole' shut, Shawn backed away rapidly and made a quick goodbye.

There was too much to do, Juliet warned herself, to be wasting time thinking about an idiot purveyor of biscuits, even if she had once locked lips with Carlton.

They worked together on writing up the statements and case notes. Vick updated them before she left that Debra Moone was stable and the other women were staying overnight, expected to be released in the morning. Initial reports were that this poisoning was a lot stronger than the first.

So why _was_ she imagining Carlton kissing that stupid woman? Why couldn't she get the idea of it out of her head? _Because _you_ are a stupid woman too, Juliet O'Hara, and you need a reality check_.

The search team called in, and she went to Carlton's desk to pass the word. "Nothing," she said. "No eye drops in the yard, over the walls, or anywhere on the first floor of the house. Three women had eye drops in their personal belongings. One was prescription, one was unopened, belonging to Rachael Baker, and the other, interestingly, was Francie's. Rachael's one of the ones still in the hospital."

"Francie," he repeated, interested. "The Daliette leader." He found the list Katherine had given them of the most-_un_likely-to-succeed contestants. "Rachael's on this list, two down from Camryn. But it's hard to believe she'd make herself sick enough to go to the hospital."

"We still need to talk to all of those women, and I want to _start_ with Camryn." She went to the window, tired and annoyed with the whole case. Not to mention Mr. Biscuit Kisser.

"Let's go back out first thing in the morning," he said, scanning the list of names one more time. "We can get through most of these people pretty quickly."

"Would you like to meet for breakfast?" she asked, obstinately playing with fire. "We can try Cahoon's, that new _biscuit_ place."

Carlton looked up immediately, blue eyes narrowing and annoyance clearly rising. "Dammit, O'Hara, what is the big freaking deal?"

She folded her arms across her chest tightly, completely unsure how to answer the question. "I just don't understand why you didn't tell me."

_Of course you understand why he didn't tell you_, argued the little voice._ You just don't like that it_ _happened_.

"Because I didn't tell anyone!"

"Shawn and Gus knew."

"Not at the _time_. I told you already." He rose from his desk and came to stand in front of her, almost backing her into the corner by the file cabinet. Looming. Annoyed, aggravated, intense.

"I just think you should tell me first when you get involved with people at the station!" She knew she was floundering. She knew it. He smelled nice, despite this whole stupid long stupid day. Damn him.

"_People_? At the _station_?" He was incredulous. "O'Hara, this non-event took place at the department picnic, the one _you_ said I should go to so I could 'play nice.' It happened behind a tree, near a damn euonymus, lasted about two minutes, and it was the biscuit lady, for God's sake, who is _not_ an employee of the department, and whether _she_ told anyone I have no idea but _I __never_ did until it came out that day with Spencer."

She glared at him. He glared back.

He pressed, "Why the hell is this bugging you so much? Why do you even—" He cut himself off.

Juliet lunged for that opening, unaccountably irate. "Were you _actually_ about to ask _me_ why I would _care_? How can you ask your partner that kind of question?"

"O'Hara, you..." He shook his head, disbelief and exasperation evident. "This is ridiculous." He started to turn away from her, then suddenly loomed in close again, trapping her in the corner. "Okay, yeah! Why _would_ you care?"

"Well, because I... because... I—dammit, Carlton, because—" _Because what?_ She could only maintain her glare, searching the depths of the great vast blue of his piercing eyes.

For a few seconds they just stared at each other, Carlton angry and Juliet a tornado of uncertainties.

"Ah, _crap_," he growled, cupped her face, and kissed her firmly.

Crap indeed, of the _holiest_ kind; Juliet gasped against his mouth, at the shock of the sweet intensity of the feel of his lips and the slightest hint of the tip of his tongue, but she didn't have time to unfold her arms and yank him closer before he pulled back again.

"There," he said hotly. "You're the first to know about _that_." He backed off, snatched up his jacket, threw a flat "I'll see you tomorrow" over his shoulder and left her trembling.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Lassiter spent two hours at the shooting range, took two cold showers, and downed two shots of bourbon before he went to bed that night, determined to avoid thinking about what he'd done or what the repercussions would be.

He just didn't want any more damned discussion of the damned biscuit lady. What the hell was her name anyway? Kristy? April? Anne? Dammit. The woman had caused him more trouble in one day than he could ever have imagined that long-ago afternoon in his beer-buzzed condition, and he couldn't even remember her name. He _did_ remember the kissing, and it was nothing compared to the ten seconds he'd spent tasting Juliet today and crap, there he went, thinking about it.

He punched the pillow hard enough to make feathers fly, got up again for another shot of bourbon, and returned to his bedroom in time to see a text message come through on his phone under the lamp.

_So, biscuits at Cahoon's, seven sharp?_

A grin curved his mouth, and he knew. She was going to let it be okay.

_Now_ he could sleep.

**. . . .**

**. . .**


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

_Another sunny damned day in Santa Barbara_, he thought, sliding into the booth across from Juliet. So far so good; she'd met him outside with her usual morning cheer and didn't seem the least bit out of sorts after their last encounter. Certainly she wasn't behaving as if she wanted to knee him in the groin for kissing her.

Orders placed, coffee delivered, morning seeming more tolerable by the sip.

"Let's go by the station first," he said. "I think we need to start looking at the production staff as well as the contestants."

"Really? I was thinking that too." She was apparently pleased to be on the same wavelength, but he'd been taking it for granted for years.

"Right—because if we're considering sociopathic behavior by _anyone_, Camryn might not be the only candidate. We also need to know if there's any way Katherine benefits or at least breaks even by way of a shutdown."

"Contract clauses, fine print," she agreed. "There could be a rider which specifies terms for extensions of the project, for example. Katherine might not want it to fail, but buying some time which doesn't cost her any money or reputation could be very desirable."

He couldn't help it; he held out his hand in a fist, and with a laugh, she bumped it with her own. "Best. Partner. Ever," he said, feeling much better about everything.

Juliet's smile was like the sun as she murmured, "Ditto."

After a moment, while stirring her coffee idly, she said, "Carlton, I'd like to apologize for pushing your buttons yesterday about the biscuit lady."

He was instantly wary, trying to read her expression. "Well. _I_ should apologize for—"

"Hang on," she interrupted. "I didn't say I was _going_ to apologize."

Lassiter eyed her, waiting for the punchline.

A half-smiled curved her lips. "You don't want me to lie, do you?"

_I don't know; maybe I do_. "What... ah... what would you be lying about?" Before Juliet could answer, the waitress reappeared to drop off their meals, and when she'd gone away again, Lassiter leaned forward and asked with a touch of irritation, "And what the hell was the biscuit lady's name anyway?"

"Mud," she said flatly.

Lassiter was caught between a laugh and an _oh-crap-what's-happening_. "O'Hara?"

"If I were to apologize," she went on smoothly, "you might think I wished you hadn't kissed me. And I absolutely _don't_ want you to think that, Carlton."

"You... don't?"

"I don't. So you see… it wouldn't be _right_ for me to apologize."

His mouth dropped open.

Juliet smiled. "Have a biscuit. I hear they're really good."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

First stop at the station was Sheba the Lab Lady, who'd called Lassiter while they were still at the diner pretending Juliet hadn't just dropped a bomb.

Lassiter held the lab door open for her; in the next half-second he caught a whiff of the light fragrance she wore, flashed back to kissing her, lectured himself about forgetting it, remembered her very titillating remark in the diner, got distracted, and nearly walked into her when she stopped suddenly.

Sheba was holding a glass of what appeared to be urine, about to dip a stalk of celery into it. "Oh! Hello, detectives. You've caught me with my morning snack." She stirred with the celery, then took a sip.

Juliet backed up abruptly, and since Lassiter was right behind her, he put his hands on her arms to stop her from crashing into him.

"Please tell us that's apple juice," he said very calmly.

Sheba laughed. "Of course it is. I'm not Woody, you know."

Juliet's relief was palpable and Lassiter released her arms reluctantly. "So," she managed, "how about those test results?"

"Definitely Tetrahydrozoline," she said, setting the juice down. "Only in the punch. And many times over the concentration of the last dose."

"Wait… Woody drinks urine?"

Sheba gave Lassiter a look. "I have no idea, I don't care to speculate, and yet, I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, my instincts, if not the results, tell me your perpetrator realized he under-poisoned the first group, and overcompensated for this one. How are the patients?"

"All of them are being released today except for Debra Moone," Juliet answered. "She's better but they want her in for another day."

"Well, Tetrahydrozoline doesn't usually kill you but it can mess you up pretty good." Sheba handed them copies of her report. "Get this guy. Or girl. Enough damage has been done."

"Roger that," Lassiter said grimly, and let Juliet lead the way out.

"Okay," she said on the stairs. "We need to look at the production crew members and see about having access to the film footage. I mean all of it."

He rolled his eyes. "Sweet Lady Justice, I do not want to watch two months' worth of those women arguing."

Juliet grinned. "We'll get Shawn and Gus to do it."

"I like the way you think, partner," he said with pride.

"I learned from my partner, partner," she countered with equal pride.

He was trying not to preen when they passed Vick's office; she called them in for an update and by the time they'd given it, she agreed looking at the contracts was a good idea, since it seemed now that quite simply everyone on the _FakeFic_ site could be a suspect.

Juliet started work on obtaining the contracts and schedules and 'fine print' while Lassiter began the background checks on the crew. They still intended to talk to the seven women on the Least Wanted list, and Lassiter assured Katherine when she called that they would definitely be out at the house later. Oh yes. They certainly would.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

"So, Jules," Shawn began as he deposited a mid-morning smoothie on her desk, carrying one of his own. "I was thinking you and I need a little alone time."

She looked at him sharply. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Stop thinking like a cop," he laughed. "Nothing's wrong. I'm suggesting socialization. You know, time away from work, not working, not talking about work, and not even thinking about work? Because work sucks?"

"Ah," she said, leaning back in her chair, glad at least for the break from staring at the computer screen. "What did you have in mind?" She smiled when he pushed the smoothie closer to her, and took a sip: un-shockingly, it was pineapple.

"Well! There _happens_ to be a stuffed animal exhibition in town this weekend, and I _know_ there is an entire section of kitties and bunnies you will immediately fall madly in love with." He waggled his eyebrows expectantly, as if daring her to argue.

Juliet grinned. "A girl is never too old to love her stuffed animals."

"Neither is Gus."

"Or you."

"Well, I've reduced my collection the past few years. Growing up and all that."

"Gus said some of them were molting." She smiled innocently.

"No, no, he said molt_en_. Because they were molten hot _goodness_, Jules. Molten."

"Uh-huh, yeah. Well, listen, I don't know if I can commit this early to—"

"Jules, stop. You know you need a break from the harsh realities of your soul-crushing job, and I'm just the man to show you a good time." He blinked. "A PG-rated good time. Maybe PG-13, and I admit, I most likely would _not_ say no to R. It all depends."

Juliet had to laugh at his persistence, as well as his rambling. "Look, I know you and Gus only want a girl with you so people don't point and stare at the two grown men wandering around the stuffed animal exhibits, but really, I—"

He held up his hand. "Stop! This isn't a Gus-inclusive event. This is just you and me. And then lunch. Possibly ice cream. MPAA ratings to be determined later. Come on."

The puppy-dog look in his hazel eyes seemed sincere, and Juliet thought again that he was very appealing in his own demented way. She hesitated, and his smile broadened, but just before she could speak, Carlton called "O'Hara! I've got something!" from his desk. She gave Shawn an apologetic look and hurried to see what her partner wanted.

Carlton gestured for her to sit in the chair beside him. "Take a look," he said, turning his screen so she could see, "at _this_."

The screen showed Frank Stephens' financial records and expenditures in recent weeks, and she skimmed through the entries, hoping to spot what had interested Carlton before he had to point it out to her. Aaaand there it was. "Well, _that's_ unexpected… flight reservations?"

"Look at the date," he prodded.

"The day before the first poisonings. Ohh… and then cancelled the next evening." She looked at him, wide-eyed. "He was planning a trip home."

Carlton grinned. "Without any reasonable expectation that he was going to have one."

"Go back further," she urged. "See if there were any other reservations made."

He obeyed, but there was nothing else in the previous two months. "O'Hara, what makes a man who knows he can't go home suddenly think he can go home?"

They studied each other; Juliet was momentarily distracted by the sheer blueness of his eyes. "The _certainty_ that the opportunity will be there."

"Right." He leaned closer, intent on thinking it through, and she wondered if he had any idea how attractive he was. "If he's our guy, he might have made the reservations hoping that once the women got sick, Katherine would have no choice but to shut down until they were well, during which time he'd get his long weekend."

"But Sheba said the first dosage was so small that none of the women were seriously affected, and since they wanted to keep going, there went his shot at a trip home."

"Because Katherine was counting on him, and he wouldn't let her down."

"At least not directly. Underhandedly and illegally, sure," she said dryly. "What do you think?"

"I think we need to go out there and ask Katherine if she knew about that trip."

"A dozen biscuits says she didn't," Juliet teased, and Carlton flushed but didn't snap.

He did say, deceptively mildly, "You'd better stop pushing those buttons, O'Hara."

She hoped the heat in her face didn't show. "I know. But, see, I have a problem."

One dark eyebrow went up. He was still leaning in, but she didn't miss his glance around the room to see who might be watching.

She could have told him: no one. Everyone was busy, Henry was off today, Shawn was down the hall already, and Carlton's aftershave was light and masculine, which had nothing to do with prying eyes but she liked it, _and so there_.

"What's this problem, then?" he inquired.

"I figured out my deal with the biscuit lady."

"Do tell." He was tensing; she could see it in his body language.

"My deal—" and she leaned closer, dropping her voice even lower, "is that I don't want her kissing you."

He didn't blink. "She's not."

"And I don't want you kissing her."

A pause. "I'm not."

"I don't think you understand, Carlton."

"I _know_ I don't understand, O'Hara."

Juliet smiled, more confident now, even though she was terrified. "I mean I want a say in who you kiss and who kisses you."

"Oh, _do_ you now," he said with interest. "Well, you'll have to—"

"Detectives," Chief Vick said, striding up quickly; Juliet couldn't help but jerk back from Carlton guiltily, and felt her cheeks flood with heat she hoped neither of them noticed. "Katherine Newton just called. She says they found something in the footage from yesterday."

"Excellent," Carlton said, already getting up to collect his jacket. "We have good reason to want to talk to her right now anyway."

"And what might that be?"

He was explaining about Frank's flight reservations when Shawn reappeared, unabashedly listening in.

"Chief!" Shawn exclaimed. "Let me go with them. There's still a lot of 'reading' to be done."

Carlton glanced at Juliet; she shrugged. The Chief sighed. "Fine. You can ride with them."

"I'll call Gus to come meet us. He said he was in the mood for some reading, too." He already had his cell phone out.

Carlton muttered, "As if the Jonton stories weren't enough."

Juliet smirked. "You should read some of them, Carlton. It'll give you some perspective on the contestants." Darting back to her desk, she picked up one of the story folders and came back, shoving it into his hand while she liberated the car keys from his other hand. "I'll drive. You read. Shawn can play Angry Birds on his phone."

He scowled, but his heart clearly wasn't in it. Although when Shawn called shotgun, he was quick to retort, "Loaded Glock," which ended that argument right quick.

**. . . . **

**. . .**

In the car, Lassiter opened the folder she'd handed him. Shawn was yammering about something and Juliet was humoring him, as she usually did, so reading one of these no-doubt insipid tales would be somewhat of a distraction.

And not just from Shawn… also from that heart-rattling little conversation they'd had before Vick interrupted. Juliet wanted a say in who kissed him? How was he supposed to take that? She'd been pink in the cheeks at the time. He wasn't that successful with women but every male instinct he possessed told him she was expressing interest. In _him_.

Juliet. Interested. Him.

Juliet.

Interested?

_Him_?

Freaky. Delightful, but freaky.

_But no thinking about that, Lassiter. Read a damned story._

It was a Daliette, as it turned out, and it didn't take long to see that the writer—Francie—was very good. She had a way of showing Dalton's internal dialogue which he found both familiar and engrossing. He'd only seen a few episodes of _Fake_ over the years but something about Dalton reminded him of, well, himself.

And oddly, something about Mariette, as Francie revealed her, reminded him of Juliet.

He wasn't prepared for the first intimate scene between the two. Francie wrote beautifully, sensually, passionately, and he totally forgot anyone was in the car with him as he read. _These two have to be together_, he thought dimly. _They just fit, and they have to be together_.

_Juliet and I have to be together._

Whoa.

He lifted his eyes from the page, slowly registering that they were just a few blocks from the _FakeFic_ mansion, stopped at a red light. Shawn was still yammering in the back seat, but Juliet had ceased responding to him. He glanced at her, and found she was looking at him, very still.

And something… something happened.

In the moments their matching blue gazes were locked, something happened.

He thought, _I have loved you so long. And I have suppressed it so long_.

And her eyes… her eyes said she knew. And she accepted it—_him_—and beyond that, _wanted_ it.

It was impossible for this to be true. Car, Shawn, red light, story, _FakeFic_, poisoning, damnable biscuit lady, distractions, job, loaded Glock, Sheba and the apple juice… Juliet.

But she smiled. And suddenly, every damned thing in the world was possible.

**. . . . . .**

**. . . . .**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

**. .**

_[shorter than usual, I know. Props to __**The Last Eggs, The First Elk**__ for suggesting Lassiter read a Daliette! Never occurred to __**me**__, duh.]_


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Gus' odd little car was coming the other way down the street when they reached the _FakeFic_ house, and Juliet was relieved because Gus would keep Shawn occupied, or vice versa, while she and Carlton got the actual work done.

She was a little shaky as she exited the vehicle; her legs a bit like jello. That look… that look they'd exchanged a few blocks back.

_Dear God, he might as well have been kissing me_.

He felt it too: it was unmistakable in his expressive blue eyes. She drew a deep breath and walked beside him to the house, listening with only half an ear to Shawn and Gus arguing about Angry Bird scores and then something about whether or not Jamba Juice should introduce a pancake-flavored smoothie.

Carlton was silent, only glancing at her in the moment after he rang the bell—but _that look_ was still there.

The minion du jour let them in, and directed them with minimal conversation to a door off the main hall, where he said Katherine was waiting.

"Where's Frank?" Juliet asked, and was told he'd gone to the hospital to pick up the returning heroines.

Carlton said, "Spencer, Guster. Go talk to the other women." He pointed to the great room, from which many feminine voices emanated, and they needed no other encouragement. "Oh, and don't piss them off this time."

"Roger Wilco, Lass. Gus, don't piss off the women this time."

"_I_ didn't piss any women off last time, Shawn. You were the one they were yelling at. I was the victim you threw to the wolves."

To the minion, Carlton said dryly, "Listen for screams. But ignore them if they're man-screams."

Juliet snickered, trying to hide it before Shawn noticed, and tugged on Carlton's sleeve lightly to get him moving down the hall.

Katherine called "Come in!" when he tapped on the door.

This room was larger than the one from yesterday, but filled with a multitude of film equipment and a lot less space for humanity.

"Mornin'," she said wearily. "Welcome to our workroom. Pull up a chair or two and I'll show you what we've got."

The monitor was large, the images clear, and the sound muted. Juliet rolled her chair close to Carlton's both because it was easier to see the whole screen and because she just freakin' felt like it, and if her knee brushed his more than it should have, so what? Besides, he obviously didn't mind, and the arm he put behind her chair didn't have to be exactly _there_, so his fingertips could brush her shoulder, did it?

_No. So shut up_.

Katherine said, "This is time-stamped between 11:30 and noon. Keep your eye on the punch."

The main action in the film was a conversation in the foreground between two Jontons and a Daliette (apparent by the logos on their t-shirts) as they sprawled in lawn chairs. In the background was a clear and steady view of the food table and the glass punch bowl.

The camera, angled downward, kept the heads of some of the punch-acquirers from being seen, but there was no mistaking Camryn—half-headless—when she approached the bowl.

And lingered.

Part of the time she was talking to one headless contestant, then another, but she maintained a position at the bowl, even when there was no one else around. She held a cup, mostly empty, and sipped from time to time, but mostly she stayed put.

"Is she just trying to stay on camera?" Juliet asked. "She has to know it's pointed her way."

"Maybe, but wait. Keep watching."

Whoever was manning the camera swung away for a second when someone mock-heckled the Jontons, and when the view returned to the three women who'd been talking, Camryn was just straightening out the punch bowl. There was a splash of red on her shirt, and she wiped her hands on a napkin from the stack.

"What just happened?" Carlton leaned forward, most of his arm now firm against Juliet's shoulders, though she didn't think he was necessarily aware.

Katherine backed the video up to play it again, muttering, "You tell me."

They rewatched it several times. After wiping her hands, Camryn exited the camera's view. Katherine advanced the video enough to show them that ten minutes later, Camryn was back in a clean shirt, but although she could be seen in the background, never went near the punch again. She hit pause and turned to them. "Well?"

Juliet spoke first. "If she put the Tetrahydrozoline in the punch, that was a dumb time to do it. She knew the camera was there and surely there were other opportunities when it wasn't."

Carlton was frowning. "But what happened with the bowl? She was alone. What happened to make the punch spill at all? I handled that thing yesterday; it's heavy glass."

"I guess we need to talk to her."

"There's something else," Katherine said. "Tessa came to me this morning and said Camryn was laughing about the poisoning."

Juliet and Carlton exchanged glances. "Well, what kind of laughing? Rueful, gleeful, psycho?"

"She wouldn't say much more. She wants to talk to you two."

"Bring it," Carlton said shortly. "That's what we're here for."

Someone tapped on the door, and Katherine stood to open it; the minion murmured something about a camera and a cable and those two dweebs in the great room. She looked at the detectives. "You want to come supervise?"

"No, thanks," Juliet answered with a sincere smile. "We'll stay here and watch the video again."

With a sigh, Katherine left, closing the door behind her, and when Juliet looked at Carlton, he said, "Juliet," so softly that it felt like a kiss.

Her throat closed with sudden emotion-fear-hope. He said her name so rarely; it carried ten times the weight of anyone else saying it. _What case?_

"Juliet," he said again. "In the car."

"Yes," she managed.

"What did I see?"

She took a deep, deep breath. "What you thought you saw." If he saw what she was feeling, he'd seen it all. If they were ever on the same wavelength, _this_ was the time it counted most.

A dozen emotions showed in his eyes, and then he leaned forward and kissed her, his warm mouth like velvet heat.

There was no hesitation on her part; she kissed him back. Her hands on his lean face, her lips exploring his, his hands holding her upper arms, their knees interlocked. His hair was so soft under her fingertips and he sighed, and she sighed, and the kiss was everything she'd known it would be—not could be, _would_ be.

He broke away, but remained close, blue eyes enormous and compelling.

Juliet brushed her lips against his one last time and smiled, because everything seemed complete now. "I'll have to what?"

Blink. "Come again?"

"That was what you were saying when Vick interrupted us. After I told you I wanted a say in who kissed you. You said I'd have to… what?"

One corner of his mouth—his wonderful, delightful mouth—curved into a faint smile. "You'd have to tell me why you never wanted a say before."

She caressed his cheek, slipping her fingers down to touch his throat, and he shivered. "I was twenty-four when I came to Santa Barbara. I thought I was worldly and well-lived because I'd been a cop in Miami. But twenty-four is so young, Carlton. I didn't know a damned thing."

"You knew plenty," he said in a low voice, leaning in for another sensuous and too-short kiss.

"No, I really didn't, but I learned fast, from you. First I wanted to be a good partner, then I wanted to be a partner _you_ could be proud of, and then—" She couldn't help it, she had to kiss him again, and it was so sweet and magnetic it was nearly impossible to pull away. "And then," she went on breathlessly, "I figured out you were the best partner for me, but I couldn't afford to get too close, because you're not supposed to break the cardinal rule about partners not getting involved."

After a moment, he slid his warm hands along her arms and captured her fingers, drawing them down into their laps. "And now?"

_He's so calm_, she thought. _I'd have expected him to fight this but it's like… he knows. Maybe he's always known. Why didn't I?_

"I grew up." She smiled, feeling shaky again. "If I'd known about the biscuit lady two years ago it still would have bothered me, but I don't think I'd have let myself recognize it for what it was. You know I never could have confided in you about Scott in the first place if there wasn't… something… some level of trust… _something_…" She had to stop because he was kissing her again. The feel of his lips on hers, the intimacy of his tongue meeting hers, the sense that they were totally alone—it was utterly hypnotic. Her heart was pounding.

"Juliet," he whispered. "This is not the best place for this conversation."

"You started it," she teased, and his smile was brilliant, lighting his cerulean blue eyes and taking years off his face, which she kissed, and kissed again, until he was helpless to resist and they were locked together again, breathing hard, anxious for each other.

Footsteps in the hall gave them fair warning to separate. Juliet got up out of her chair and feigned intense interest in the painting of a pineapple tree on the opposite wall so she could calm down and maybe get some of the heat out of her cheeks.

Katherine was exasperated when she came in. "I asked you not to bring those two idiots here again. They've broken a sofa, eaten half the morning snacks Amanda just put out, and started a pillow fight which resulted in Charlie getting feathers up his nose."

"We didn't have a choice," Carlton said brusquely. "Our Chief thought they could be useful. Can we talk to Tessa now?"

"Yes, she's already waiting for you in the next office." She gestured, and they followed her to the room they'd used yesterday prior to the melee in the back yard.

Tessa, wearing her Jonton t-shirt, was leaning against the wall, everything about her body language suggesting tension and anxiety. After Katherine left, she managed, "Hey."

"Tessa," Juliet said, taking a chair. "You want to sit down?"

"No."

Carlton sat, and the two of them waited for her to speak.

"It's Camryn," she said. "I know it is. Not just because I don't like her, either. I know it's her."

"Sit, relax, and tell us." Carlton's voice was firm.

Tessa complied after a few seconds, but was hardly relaxed. "When the Daliettes got sick, we thought it was just a bug, or food poisoning, or—I don't know; we just didn't think it was that serious a deal. I mean, poison? _Really_?"

"Really," he supplied.

"But now… yeah. We get it. Someone's serious about this."

"Very observant."

Juliet kicked his foot under the table, and he half-closed his eyes for a moment, obviously struggling to remember how to be nice. "Yes, Tessa. Someone is serious about this."

Tessa sighed. "Last night I was wandering the hall outside the dorm. I was trying to work out the next scene in my WIP, which wasn't going very well, because my OMC was being a real jerk, and I—"

Carlton held up his hand. "Speak English. You know, for the old-timer."

She rolled her eyes. "Work in progress. Other male character. Anyway, when I was in front of the Joniette dorm I could hear Camryn talking to someone—I think it was Nicole but I won't swear to it—and she was kinda laughing about what happened with the punch. She said it served everybody right because they should have called it off the first time and just paid everyone to go home."

Juliet studied her. "Pay everyone to go home? We looked at the contracts. Contestants get paid only if they last the full ninety days."

"I know. If you don't, you only get room and board and transportation. That's what we all agreed to and that's why everyone who got sick the first time wanted to come back. Everyone wanted to stick it out for the five grand."

"What did the other girl say?"

"She said what I said. Then Camryn said it didn't matter—there was no way Katherine wouldn't have to cough up some money if the project was cut because of attempted poisonings."

"Speculation," Carlton said, but Juliet knew him; they were both thinking Camryn might be right. Enough contestants complaining about the project being cut abruptly, and there might well be some kind of payoff.

"We looked very closely at the contracts, Tessa. There's no such clause." Juliet was sure of it. "You'd all have to sue, or threaten convincingly to sue, and even then, Katherine and her team would need the financial backing to pay everyone off."

"Well, they were prepared to pay five grand to up to thirty women anyway. That's what Camryn said." She hugged herself tight. "I wanted to kick the door down and smack her. This is all because she sucks as a writer."

"How can she suck and still be a ship captain?" Carlton asked, quite reasonably.

Tessa scoffed. "Come on. We all submitted our very _best_ stories to get here. But even I know sometimes your very best is something you can't repeat, and Camryn's been really average since she got here. Pisses her off, too."

"She seemed pretty confident in the sunroom yesterday that she was going to win."

"Yeah? Well, she also thinks the moon landings were fake and Jon's straight."

Juliet kept her mouth shut. Carlton cleared his throat.

Tessa laughed suddenly. "Sorry, I have to say that. The point is, she's delusional. She knows she can't win. Hell, I know _I_ can't win, but I've loved being here with everyone. I've learned a lot about how to be a better writer—and not just of Jonton stories—and that's worth a lot more than five grand."

"But five grand is nice," Juliet said mildly.

"Hell to the yeah it is." She sighed. "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about it."

"You did the right thing," he assured her. "Anything else you can remember about yesterday?"

"Nah. I've been over it in my head a million times. We all have."

Juliet thanked her, asked her to find Katherine and send her in, and let Carlton take her hand under the table. "What do you think?"

"Two strong suspects. But the contract…" he mused, as he stroked her hand, "If there was some reason Katherine thought the project was doomed, and she was sure the contract would hold up in court, would it be worth it to cut her losses and walk away?"

"I don't think she'd be working this hard to keep it going if she wanted to cut her losses." She squeezed his hand, marveling at how natural it felt to be holding on to this man she'd barely touched in six years.

"True. Okay, let's stick to the top two for now."

"As for the other conversation," she prompted. "We'll continue it as soon as possible."

"Yes," he said simply. "Assuming I don't die from shock before then."

Juliet laughed. "You don't seem shocked. You seem like you were just waiting for me to see the light."

Carlton grinned. "No. I was too busy ignoring the light myself to wonder whether _you'd_ ever see it."

"Seems like a Klieg light now." She touched his face and he kissed her palm. "We do have a lot to talk about, don't we."

He murmured, "I don't know, Juliet. It kinda feels like everything important's already been said without much talking at all."

The look in his eyes, and what it did to her heart-rate, was incredible. Juliet was ready to move into his lap and stay there when they heard those damnable footsteps in the hall again.

Katherine came in and, as if he and Juliet hadn't just been having an extremely personal conversation, Carlton asked her to shut the door. "I don't have much time," she said. "You know I want to cooperate but really, this is slowing us down so damned much." She stood at the end of the table, arms folded.

"We'll be brief, and then you can send Camryn in." He straightened his tie and gave her the cool blue gaze which had driven many a suspect to confess. "Did you know that on Monday, Frank Stephens made flight reservations to Chicago for this weekend?"

Her mouth dropped open. Then she laughed. "No way."

Juliet smiled. "Way."

"Well, you have bad information, because that can't be right."

"It is, though," Carlton said smoothly. "He cancelled the reservations while everyone was still in the ER."

Katherine stared at them, and Juliet knew this very smart cookie was picking up every unspoken meaning in his words. Abruptly, she advanced toward the table, annoyed. "Look, you've been very concerned about Frank and I appreciate that, and I'm concerned too, but there is really no point to you casting aspersions on him. I _get_ that this case is complicated and there's like eight hundred suspects but you can take your eagle-eyes off him right this damn minute because no way would he _ever_ work against me."

Carlton was unimpressed. "Man's gotta be with his family."

She looked as if she wanted to spit. "That's crap."

"You sure about that?" Juliet got up too, circling the table to approach her. "Really? If we can see how desperate he is, why is it so hard for you?"

"You think _you're_ his family," Carlton suggested.

Katherine and Juliet both looked at him sharply.

_Damn, he's probably right._

The producer ran her hands through her spiky hair and headed for the door, pausing only to say, "We're done. I'll send Camryn in but I don't want to hear any more crap about Frank."

"Too bad," Carlton said softly after she'd gone, "because we have a lot more to sling."

"Katherine!" Juliet called out quickly, and followed her into the hall. "Listen," she said, keeping her tone steely—because Carlton wasn't the only one who could elicit cooperation from the uncooperative—"however strong your feelings about Frank's good character, you should know that if you breathe one word about this before we've talked to him, you could be charged with obstruction of justice."

Katherine glared. "That's assuming there's justice to be obstructed. I _know_ him. I know he would never do this to me, let alone to the contestants." From down the hall, a no-doubt Shawn-induced cacophony could be heard. "Okay, maybe the contestants," she said dryly. "But not me."

"Either way. Don't interfere. Right now it's just questions, you understand? It's only the answers you have to worry about, and it seems to me you have plenty of _other_ things to worry about first."

Shaking her head, and looking for the first time like a bit of an obstinate child, Katherine said flatly, "It's Camryn. I'll send her in and you can prove it for yourself." She stalked down the hall.

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	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER NINE**

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_[Note: I made considerable tweaks to the two mushy scenes between Carlton & Juliet in the previous chapter, in case you only read it on Saturday evening when I first posted it. I was unhappy with the original version; now I am less unhappy!]_

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After a while, the front door minion came in to say Camryn was on the phone with family, long-distance, and would be along in a few minutes. Lassiter decided against telling him to go up and rip the phone out of her hands because when the police want to talk to a person, family sometimes has to wait.

Juliet closed the door, came to him and drew him to his feet. "We could talk about the case, like good and responsible cops, or—"

He was already kissing her, pushing her back against the wall. What had passed between them in the film room was just the start, and more was definitely better.

Juliet's arms wrapped around his neck and his around her waist, and he pressed to her, mouth and body, feeling her heat and kissing her as deeply as a man could kiss a woman he'd been in love with for years.

Long years.

God, she smelled so good and tasted so right—the swell of her lips, the persistence of her tongue, the thrill of her sigh into his very soul… her curves molding to his angles in _all_ the right places.

"Carlton," she gasped when he trailed his tongue down her neck. "Oh… more… please…"

But there wasn't a lot he could do here, while they were working, and he was already nearly to the point of no return. "Dammit," he growled, squeezing her hard and feeling her undulate against him. "I'm stepping back. I am. Any second now."

"No you're not," she breathed, and shifted her leg to wrap around his.

"O'Hara… don't…" But he had to kiss her again, what was left of his brain already imagining being with her fully, completely, unclothed, later, alone, _forever_.

It was when his hand moved to cup her breast through her jacket that she seemed to gather herself. "Okay," she said with difficulty. "Okay. Step back."

He obeyed, almost stumbling against the table, rubbing his face and taking deep breaths. "Quick. Tell me something to piss me off."

After a second, and still out of breath herself, she said, "Shawn's in the great room ruining the police department's reputation."

"That'll do it." He straightened up, went to the window and flung it open, letting in the cool morning air and drinking deep.

Juliet joined him, smoothing her hair down. Her cheeks were still rosy and she looked as if she'd just been making out, but maybe only to him. No reason for anyone else to think that.

"All right," he said more briskly. "We like Frank and Camryn for this. But Katherine's got an angle too."

"If they're having an affair," she said, refocusing her attention, "that could be another reason she hasn't made an opportunity for him to go home."

"And if the affair was over, all the more reason for him to want to go home so badly."

She patted her cheeks, breathing deeply. "Yet I don't see them in an affair. She's loyal and obviously trusts him implicitly but I don't see him either being with her or trying to run away from her. He just wants to be with his family."

"And away from this project in particular."

"Well, yeah." She grinned. "What do you think _is_ going on in the great room?"

He shrugged. "I don't even care. Are you going to the stuffed animal show with Spencer?"

Juliet was surprised. "I don't think so. You heard that?"

"I found Frank's flight reservation five minutes before I called you over," he admitted. "I picked my moment to interrupt very carefully."

Her mouth dropped open in surprise, but then she laughed. "You didn't have to worry. Even if I had said yes, it wouldn't have been a date to me."

"But to him it would have."

"And I'd have corrected that impression as quickly as possible. Carlton, I do _like_ Shawn. But I'm not attracted to him."

He looked at her, wondering if he dared to ask. "Has that always been true?"

She hesitated, but her clear blue gaze never wavered. "No. I _was_ attracted to him for a while. But not for a long time, and never again."

Lassiter held out his hand, and she took it, hers warm and soft. "I owe him a favor, then. If he hadn't outed me about the biscuit lady—"

"Then I wouldn't have become irrationally jealous to the point you had to kiss me to shut me up." She beamed. "Looks like I owe him too."

"We'll send him a thank-you note," he said dryly, and she laughed.

Someone tapped on the door. Juliet moved away from him and called out "Come in."

Camryn was a tense little thing, Lassiter thought, watching as she finally entered the room. She was thin and angry and defiant and she knew something was up, and she knew it was bad.

"Sit," he said without any attempt to soothe her, but she only stood defiantly.

Juliet gave her a stern look, and that seemed to do the trick; she sat at the far end of the table, her chair half-turned so she could see out the window.

"What happened with the punch yesterday?" Juliet asked without preamble.

Camryn's head whipped around. "What?"

"Do you use eye drops?" he asked evenly.

She stared at him now.

Juliet: "Were you not sure about the correct dosage the first time, or were you just playing?"

Lassiter: "Laughing about poisoning people is sociopathic, you know."

She burst out, "Stop! I'm not a sociopath and I didn't poison anyone!"

"But you laughed about it," Juliet said with her steely smile.

"No, I—no. Stop. That's not true."

"We have a witness," Lassiter told her. "Someone who heard you laughing about how Katherine was going to have to pay everyone off. We also have video footage of you spending a lot of time at the punch bowl and somehow mysteriously getting some on yourself and having an excuse to disappear to change clothes—maybe also to hide a bottle of eye drops?" He didn't really believe it; it didn't make sense that she'd poison the punch with the camera right there, unless she really was a sociopath and was daring them to catch her.

Camryn was horrified. "No! No!"

"Then what, Camryn?" Juliet softened her tone. "Tell us what's going on."

She looked helplessly from one to the other, and then put her head in her hands on the table. "I had nothing to do with anything," she said, her voice muffled.

"Sit up," he snapped.

Obeying, and slightly grayish in color, she said shakily, "I didn't do anything. I admit to being glad the Daliettes were sick and I hoped they would all go home. It's a stupid ship and I liked that it might be sunk."

"Charming," Juliet muttered.

"But I had nothing to do with it, and no, I don't use eye drops."

"What happened with the punch bowl?" he persisted.

"Nothing, I swear. When the girls started catcalling I turned to see who it was and my cup hit the side of the bowl and tipped it. That's all. I swear."

"And what about the laughing over it later?"

Her eyes filled with tears—shame? Sorrow? Embarrassment? Realization she was an idiot? Lassiter waited to find out.

"I just…" She sniffled. "I just know I'm not going to win and if this stuff keeps happening Katherine will pull the plug and I've put too much time and work into this to go home without the money. That's all. It was just talk. I swear."

Juliet asked, "What happened to your bold claim the other day that you _were_ going to win?"

"Hell," she said with feeling. "That was just talk, too. I am a good writer. I _am_. I'm really _really_ good. But since I got here I can barely write a grocery list." She sniffled again, wiping her eyes. "The truth is, a Joniette _should_ win. The Daliettes and Jontons are full of crap and there's no way _Fake_ is going to take any script of theirs, period."

Lassiter couldn't help it. "I read a Daliette. It was excellent." He felt Juliet's glance, but didn't dare meet it.

Camryn glared at him, her old belligerence back. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"And you were wrong the _last_ time you said that too, weren't you, Einstein?"

She had the sense to keep quiet.

"Who else besides you had motive?"

"_I_ didn't have motive!" she protested.

"Who else?" he repeated.

"Nobody! I don't know of any contestant who'd be crazy enough to do this. Not even a Jonton."

"What about the crew?" Juliet asked, her tone neutral. "Any of them set off any alarms?"

Camryn curled her lip. "Well, that Charlie Young's a perv. He's hit on, like, ten of the girls already."

"_Poisoning_ alarms," Juliet elucidated.

"No. No one. Everyone's here to make this work, not make it fail."

"That's probably the most rational thing you've said to us all week," Lassiter said. "We'll be talking to you again, Camryn, but you can go for now."

She was out of the room like a shot.

Juliet hmmmed. "Should we still talk to the other six women on the list of writers who aren't going to win?"

"One of them is coming back from the hospital, right?" He got out his notebook, on which he'd jotted the list yesterday. "Rachael. I think we'll skip her."

"Be a good cover, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah," he agreed, "but would you risk your health for a lousy five grand?"

"No, but then I'm sane, and we don't know anything about Rachael yet."

"True." But then Lassiter thought of something else instead. Something alarming. "Do we know if anyone went with Frank to the hospital?"

"I'll ask," she said, and went out into the hall. He heard her heels clicking on the flagstone floor and after a moment followed, to very reluctantly see what havoc was being Shawn-wreaked in the great room. _Broken sofa?_

Juliet was speaking to the front door minion when Lassiter cautiously entered the great room.

Shawn was standing on the fireplace hearth, arms upraised. Gus was being pinned down onto one of the still unbroken sofas by three young women, all of whom appeared very angry. Whir the cameraman was panning the room, but Charlie's camera was focused in on Shawn.

"I am having a vision," Shawn said dramatically, "of—"

Lassiter closed the door, already uninterested. He spared a thought for Guster, but assumed no real harm would come to him. Probably.

Juliet beckoned from across the hall. "Frank went alone in the van, about two hours ago."

"Isn't that a little long to pick up women and bring them home?"

"Hospital checkout paperwork?" She was trying to read him. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," he said quietly as they walked back toward their room, "that if he's really desperate, we need to make sure that van and its cargo get back here safely."

She already had her phone out, calling the hospital; Lassiter called McNab to look up Frank's cell phone number, which he knew was in their files back at the station.

"The hospital says they all checked out over an hour ago," Juliet told him, concerned.

He glanced at his watch. "It's fifteen minutes from here, tops."

McNab called back in a few minutes, but what he told Lassiter at length wasn't at all what he wanted to hear, and he repeated it to Juliet with anger. "The damn van was in an accident twenty minutes ago." He started for the door but she yanked him back.

"What else? What else did he say? Are they all right?"

Lassiter forced himself to calm down. "Investigators are on the scene but witnesses say the van jumped the curb without warning and rolled into a culvert. Some of the women were injured and Frank's claiming the brakes didn't work."

"Carlton," she whispered. "He's gone over the edge."

"But why now? Why on his way back? He might actually have achieved a shut-down with this second poisoning, given our investigation."

They looked at each other intently and suddenly he _knew_, but she said it first: one word, in a low voice. They turned as one and marched to the film room door, opening it without knocking.

Katherine jerked up in her seat, pissed off at the interruption. "Working here," she snapped.

Lassiter kept his eyes on her while Juliet darted forward and snatched up the cell phone which lay next to the keyboard. "You warned him," he said coldly.

"Give me my phone," she said, getting up, but Lassiter held a hand out to tell her wordlessly to remain seated. "What are you talking about?"

"You warned him," he repeated. "You warned Frank about us."

She was mutinously silent for a moment, watching Juliet inspect her phone.

"Here," Juliet exclaimed. "A call to Frank twenty-two minutes ago."

"All I did was ask what was taking so long with the girls and he said they'd sweet-talked him into going by Starbucks." She rolled her chair back and started to rise again, and again Lassiter pointed for her to sit. "They'll be here any minute now."

"You warned him," he said one more time, "and now you've lied about it."

"You're being an ass," she declared. "I am the producer of this show and I have a right to communicate with my staff about the well-being of my contestants. They're my responsibility, and I take my responsibilities very seriously."

Juliet pocketed the phone, to Katherine's outrage, and said icily, "Well, he seems to have deliberately wrecked the van, so I guess _that's_ your responsibility too."

Katherine went white. "What? What do you mean, he—is he okay? Is anyone hurt? What happened?"

Lassiter felt nothing but profound anger toward this spiky-haired TV person. "Now you want to know? When we wanted to talk about him before you shut us down because you were so sure he could never work against you."

"Just tell me," she said faintly. "Tell me they're okay."

"Everyone's alive." Juliet's tone lacked sympathy. "All we know for now is he jumped a curb and rolled the van for no apparent reason. Two minutes_ after _you called him."

If she was white before, she was whiter still now. "Oh, God," she whispered.

"Yeah. You should be real proud of that one." Lassiter was still furious.

"I swear. I had no idea. Why would I help him hurt anyone?"

"Do you know—have you been _withholding_—anything which points to his involvement in the poisonings?" Juliet moved to stand closer to her, as if buffering her from Lassiter's wrath, but he knew from the set of her shoulders that she was just as angry.

"No, I swear. He's been asking to go home. Pleading. But he always said he understood when I couldn't let him go."

"Have you ever been involved with him?" Juliet pushed.

"No!" Katherine seemed genuinely shocked. "We're just…" she paused, and finished helplessly, "friends. Partners. That's all." She covered her eyes with her hands for a moment, breathing raggedly. Then, because the show had to go on, she got up despite Lassiter's warning and said firmly, "I need to know about the girls."

"You'll know when we know." Juliet was blocking her path.

"You don't understand. They really are my responsibility and I do care about them. I need to get to them. Frank can wait."

"Well, _that's_ ironic," Lassiter remarked. "Because I believe letting Frank _wait_ is what started all this crap."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

They escorted Katherine to the hospital where McNab said Frank and the contestants had been taken. Most of them were going to be released in a matter of hours; they had cuts and bruises, but nothing more serious, accompanied by complete shock that this roller coaster ride didn't seem to have an end.

Whatever irritation Katherine had felt for 'the girls' over the eight weeks they'd been together, she put it aside and became the adult they needed (although some of them were older than she was) for the time being.

She did not ask to see or speak to Frank, and Juliet knew it meant she accepted there was no other explanation for all this than his guilt.

Frank had glass cuts to his face and arms, and ribcage bruising from the seatbelt, but was fully able to be stuffed in a squad car and taken to the police station for questioning. He wasn't saying much.

Juliet and Chief Vick watched from Observation while in Interrogation A, Carlton asked Frank, "Did you poison the Daliettes' water?"

Frank sighed. "Yes."

"Did you poison the punch?"

"Yes."

"Did you deliberately wreck the van after Katherine called to warn you we knew about your flight reservations?"

He swallowed.

"You knew you were never getting home," Carlton said more gently. Juliet was touched that he made the effort.

"Yes," he said hoarsely. "And getting home is all I ever wanted."

"Not to rub it in, but attempted murder is a sure-fire way to screw that up."

Frank sighed. "It was only supposed to take one dose. If she had just stopped production for a few days after the first one, I'd have been done. I just wanted three days at home. That's all."

"But your dose wasn't strong enough and everyone wanted to go on."

"I told you," Frank said flatly. "I _told_ you this place was my permanent hell."

"You did," Carlton agreed. "Looks like you had it pegged from the start."

**. . . .**

**. . .**

With Frank's full confession collected, Juliet and Carlton were back at their desks immersed in the copious paperwork for the case. Juliet looked at the clock; it was just past noon and she still couldn't believe so much had happened in one morning.

She looked over her shoulder at Carlton, who looked back at her, his blue gaze direct and full of promises for later. Feeling the blush—and the anticipation—she had trouble getting her mind back on her work.

Shawn and Gus erupted into the room—well, Shawn erupted; Gus just coasted along in his wake. "Guys! We've been at the _FakeFic_ house for hours! When did you leave?"

"Oh… sorry, Shawn. I guess we forgot you."

"How could you forget _us_?"

"We practice," Carlton muttered, but they all heard him, and Juliet hid her smile.

"We heard Frank's the shooter?"

"Poisoner," she corrected. "And van-wrecker."

"But not home-wrecker. Shame. Well, we're certainly glad we could help out on this one."

"Uh, yeah, Shawn. So are we." She never failed to be astonished by his ability to deny reality. "But just so you know, between the bills for what you ate and what you broke, Henry says your fee is going to be cut to about fifty bucks this time."

He was shocked.

She added sweetly, "And that's generous."

"Dad!" he started to bellow, but Henry was nowhere in sight.

"Take the money and run," Carlton called out.

"Yeah, like—"

"I'm serious, Spencer. Take the money. And _run_."

Shawn turned his back on Carlton. "So what about _FakeFic_? Is Katherine still going forward?"

"Too soon to tell. It's really up to the contestants now."

"We were bonding with them really well," he mused.

Gus retorted, "When you say 'bond' you must mean 'being despised by.'"

"There was love, Gus."

"There was no love, Shawn."

Shawn's gaze fell to the folders on Juliet's desk. "There's love in those Joniette stories. Please, Jules? May I read a few more? I just feel like Jon deserves all the lovin' he can get from his sweet Mariette."

Juliet suddenly threw her hands up into the air, startling them both. "I just figured it out! It's you! Jon reminds me of you! How did I not see it before?" She felt like a big 'duh.'

Shawn grinned broadly, as Juliet and Gus and Carlton all stared at him. "Hell, yeah. Jon is beyond cool."

Juliet immediately thought of a few ways he wasn't cool at all, and glanced at Carlton, who only raised one eyebrow and kept quiet.

Gus said, "Dude, that means Juliet is Mariette!"

Shawn's grin became even wider; Carlton rolled his eyes, and Juliet knew she looked disbelieving. "Now _that_ is what I call karma," he nearly purred. "Mariette, Juliet, _oh_ yeah. And Jon has _her_, which means…" He winked in an exaggerated manner.

Clearing his throat, Gus said, "Don't get too cocky, Shawn. If you're Jon, and she's Mariette, than means Lassiter is Dalton."

"Yeah, whatever," he started, still mock-leering at Juliet. "It doesn't—" He stopped abruptly and furrowed his brow at Carlton.

Juliet struggled so not to laugh. Carlton's only reaction was the slightest hint of a knowing smile.

"Uh, Shawn? Do you look that way because you're afraid he's coming for you?" Gus' voice was so silky. "Or do you look that way because you're afraid he's coming for _Juliet_?"

Shawn's expression was priceless; a combination of disbelief, puzzlement, alarm, distrust and hey-how-did-I-get-into-this. "Don't be like that, Gus," he finally said. "It's just a TV show." Then, obviously determined to get back what control he thought he'd had, he smiled winningly at Juliet. "The lady will settle it all in the end. Lunch, Jules? Gus and I were thinking of stopping by Cheesy McCheddarhead's for some cheese soup, cheese salad, cheese fries, cheeseburgers and cheese pie."

"With cheese sticks on the side," Gus added.

"Because otherwise it's just overkill."

Juliet frowned. "You disturb me, Shawn."

Carlton got up from his desk, reaching for his jacket, and said with no special tone in his voice, "If that all appeals to you, O'Hara, I'll see you later." A faint smile lit his blue, blue eyes. "Unless you'd like to come with me to check out that French bistro we read about in _Lawson's Coastal Dining._"

Shawn gasped. Gus looked intrigued.

"Come on, Jules," Shawn cajoled. "It's cheesy time."

Juliet took him by the arm and pulled him aside to say very quietly, "Carlton's not coming for you, Shawn."

"He's not?" He actually did look a little relieved.

"No. I got him first."

His eyes grew wide. "Jules, no! That—that goes against _canon_!"

"I'm sorry. I just don't care." She kissed his cheek. "I gotta go now." As she passed Gus, she said, "Say hello to the kittens and bunnies tomorrow."

When she drew even with her smiling Carlton, she murmured, "No gloating," and he shook his head. "But lunch, yes."

"And more later?" he asked too softly for anyone else to hear.

"Everything later," she agreed with a smile. "Everything."

**. . . . .**

**. . . .**

**. . .**

**F I N **


End file.
